Part 73

He nodded. "I see it plainly to-day, more plainly than ever before. Sometimes when a man is in deep water his sight gets keener. What I have been through in the last seven years is only a phase, it's not an epoch. I was meant to do it, and I did it with all my heart. Now I'm going to do something else, in order that the works may prosper. You have helped me to make that decision."

"I?" she whispered faintly.

He put a hand on her arm--it was his only caress.

"Yes, Elsie, you. It is as though I had caught sight of a road which was very beautiful and tender, and I was tempted to take it. But it is not my road. What the future has left for me I don't know, but it is not here and I must meet it alone."

He paused for a moment, and the girl's brown eyes filled with tears. Presently the steady voice continued.

"Destiny is calling, and one cannot take a girl into a battlefield, for that is what it is going to be. I'm a poor man again, Elsie, just as I was seven years ago. That does not matter, for I will be rich in memories."

"Don't," she said brokenly, "don't!"

"Youth will go to youth, Elsie."

"You mean--"

"I mean that the man you really love, is the man you saw run the rapids."

"Jim!" Her eyes were round with terror.

"Yes, Jim, the best friend but one I found in St. Marys. Jim, full of loyalty and courage and energy; Jim who wanted to give his life for mine, though he thought he'd lost you. He had never really lost you, Elsie. The road that led to you seemed so attractive that I hesitated, till now I see that it was Jim's road. It always was."

In the silence that followed she lifted her exquisite face. Her lips were parted, and in her gaze was a light that came as through dissolving mist. And then into their very souls crept the voice of the rapids. Clark caught it, and perceived that the call was not for him alone but for thousands yet unborn, and there began to creep over him the ineffable unction of labor. He realized how large was the world, and how much work yet remained to be done. His spirit was not solitary, but linked forever with eternal realities, and through the cloud that obscured the present he could see his star of destiny shining undimmed.

And Elsie! Elsie sat, her whole being shaken with overwhelming emotion. Never had she so longed to be everything to this man as now when, with prophetic power, his vibrant voice told her that he must journey on alone. In his accents she recognized the note of fate, and the ground shifted under her feet. She saw her dream dissolving. She perceived that against his lofty spirit she herself must oppose nothing small and selfish, however poignant the moment. Summoning all her fortitude, she stretched out her hand.

He stood for a moment, and she felt the pressure of his grasp. It was warm and confident. When she looked up she was alone.

It was hours afterwards that Ardswell and Weatherby lounged at their windows, overhanging the terrace. They were in dressing gowns and smoking contemplative pipes. Down below was seated a motionless gray clad figure, clearly outlined in the moonlight. Ardswell saw him.

"Poor devil!" he said under his breath.

XXV.--THE UNCONQUERABLE SPIRIT

Two years later, Belding and Elsie were returning from Chicago, where the former had been purchasing machinery for the new company, of which he was chief engineer. Time had done well for them and for St. Marys. The six months' physical inactivity of the works were spent wisely, if ruthlessly, in weeding out unfertile growths and concentrating resources on those which were sound and promising. There was a sharp distinction between this deliberate policy and the restless activity that preceded it.

St. Marys, too, had caught its breath and taken on permanency. There were no more surprises. The works became a factory, instead of a Pandora's box, full of the unexpected. Property was stable, if lower than the high water mark, while Filmer and the rest settled down to steady business, somewhat forgetful of the man to whom were due the first tendrils of the tree of progress.

But Belding, growing constantly in mental stature, could never forget. His own position--his development--his authority, had come of the abiding faith bestowed on him nine years ago by one whom he had then seen but for ten minutes. And as often as he saw the works the realization came over him. How many others, he wondered, felt as he did?

They were approaching St. Marys, and, coming out of the dining car with Elsie, he steadied her to their seat. Night was drawing on, but the car remained unlighted, and simultaneously they noticed a man sitting across the aisle, staring intently out of the window. Something familiar in the figure caught their attention.

"It's Mr. Clark," he whispered to his wife.

She glanced across, and her fingers tightened on his arm.

"Don't speak to him, Jim."

"Why?"

"Look at him, can't you see?"

Belding looked, Clark was absolutely motionless, and had not changed a fraction in two years. The train moved on, till it halted for a few moments on the great bridge. The air was cool and full of the deep roar of the rapids, and the car vibrated delicately with the huge steel girders on which it rested. Two hundred feet away came the first, smooth dip that Belding would always remember. Immediately beneath, he had slid into the chaos further on.