from the brown earth; the south wind from the prairies began to rise, blowing strongly, scented by the breeding land over which it had come. As the day drew to its close, the murmuring voices of re-created life ascended from all parts of the earth with a strengthened note. The treetoads were chorusing in the damp hollows, and the spice of roots and mould sucked out by the hot sun was descending once more in damp fragrance to the earth. The moist, crumbling soil beneath the man's body was opening itself, stirring, awakening, preparing for the gigantic tasks of renewal, of re-creation, of conception, and birth. An immense, powerful, impersonal life, the greatest Life of all, was going forward all about him. In the midst of this mystery he was but an atom, -an accident which counted for nothing.

That terrible vision of dying men and women no longer haunted the man's mind. The catastrophe which had shaken him to the roots of his being sank into its place behind the long procession of his acts, which had made him what he was. Now, at last, he began to think coherently, to see himself in the whole, step by step, as he had come to be. He saw the old man's funeral; he remembered his one restless preoccupation about the money which was soon to be his; he recalled his resentment over the will, and his growing lust for that money which had slipped from his grasp. Then he saw the thread of that devious course which he had followed in his efforts to make money. From the first day, in the struggle for success, there rose before his eyes the man Graves. The contractor's fat, bearded face was the image of his sin, familiar in its cupidinous look. It was the image of that greed to which he had submitted himself, with which he had consented to do evil. From the very hour when he had caught the contractor's eye in the Canostota, and the two had committed fraud over the weight of steel in an I-beam, there had set forth a long, long train of petty dishonesties, which had created in him the vitiating habit of

insincerity. One by one he remembered the fraudulent buildings in which he had had a part, the school from which he had tried to steal some of the money his uncle had denied him, and finally this hotel which had crumbled at the touch of fire. That was the strange, dramatic climax of the story, fated so to be from the first petty lust for money, from the first fraud!

Greed, greed! The spirit of greed had eaten him through and through, the lust for money, the desire for the fat things of the world, the ambition to ride high among his fellows. In the world it had a dignified name; it was called enterprise and ambition. But now he saw it for what it was, greed and lust, nothing more. It was in the air of the city which he had breathed for eight years. And he had justified knavery by Success. He had judged himself mean and small merely because he had failed to cheat and steal and trick “in a large way." Only the little and the weak need be honest; to the strong all things were right, he had said glibly. Now, for the first day since his manhood, he saw acts, not blurred by his own passions, not shifting with the opinions of the day; but he saw them fixed and hard,-acts, living, human acts, each one in its own integrity, with its own irrevocable fate. Acts expressed in lowered eyelids of consent, in shrugs, in meaningful broken phrases, apparently innocent, but torturously deep; acts unprofessional, sharp, dishonest, criminal!

He lay in the gathering twilight, listened, and saw. And at last the soul of the man, which had been long in hiding, came back, and flowed into him once more. A deep, new longing filled his heart, a desire to be once again as he had been before, to rise from his debasement and become clean, to slough off this parasitic self into which he had grown all these years of his strife in the city, to be born anew like the springtime earth. For such longings come to men sickened with the surfeit of their passions.

which had been growing all the years of their marriage, and had repudiated it. She had cried out against the mere getting and spending of money, to which point those lofty ambitions of his youth had descended. She had loved him as the creator, the builder; and he had given her no visions, but only the sensualities of modern wealth. "Let us begin again and live the common life," she had cried out to him. "Let us live for work and not for money!" And he had put her aside with contempt. Now he knew that she had done well to leave him to his own day of judgment. And the first impulse in the man's new soul was to go to her, humbly, and say to her: "You were right! I have sinned against myself, against you, against life, all along the way. Will you accept my repentance, and love me again from the beginning, knowing now the truth?" He desired wistfully to hear her answer; his heart left him in doubt as to what that answer might be. For he understood at last that he had never known this woman, who had been his wife for eight years.

Nevertheless, despite this hunger of his heart for the woman he loved, there rose in him slowly a purging sense of relief from crime and sin committed. It had passed away, was put off from himself. He was to come once more into peace! The upspringing life of the reincarnated earth chanted all about him but one song: "Here I leave my uncleanness. Life is strong and good. There is forgiveness and peace. Here I bury the filth of my deeds, and renew my hope." Thus man rises again and again from the depths of his abasement; thus springs in him a new hope, a vital, imperishable element, the soul of his being, and he is prepared afresh for the struggle. Yet more, blindly convinced of the power to rise, to renew himself!

Thus, after the tempest of debauch, little men wake from their carnal desires, and, leaving behind them the uncleanness of their flesh, go forth into the pure morning, subdued and ashamed, yet irresistibly sure that life is good and holds

forgiveness and hope for them, too. With the new day they will become like their dreams, clean and pure. Thus, also, those larger men, not eaten by bodily lusts, those greater sinners who are caught on the whirling spikes of bolder passions, who are torn and twisted, these return at certain hours to the soul within them, and renew there the pure fire of their natures, so that they may enter again the endless contest having hope and health. Thus, above all, the great heart of things, the abundant mother of life, the earth, renews herself eternally according to the laws of her being, and comes forth afresh and undiminished for the business of living.

So, the mere lump of man lying there inert upon the ground felt the great process of renewal all about him, and sucked in fresh life and health. In like manner, years before, in his youth, he had gone down to the ocean, and there had learned something of this mysterious sensation of renewal. When his body was plunged in the cool, black sea-water he had drawn through the pores of his flesh the elemental currents of life. He longed now to escape again from men, to go down to the sea and touch the waters washing in from their remote tidal courses up and down the earth. By such means Nature cleanses and teaches man! Heedless of man, unconcerned with his follies and vices, impersonal, irresistible, majestic, she receives his head upon her breast, and renews within him his spirit, the power to battle, the power to live.

The fruitful earth holds in her bosom death and life, both together, and out of her comes health. In like manner there lie in the heart of man diverse instincts, - seeds of good and evil, ready to germinate. For long seasons seeds of one kind burst forth in the soil of a man's nature and thrive. Accident, the intricate web of fate, gives them their fit soil, their heat, their germinating impulse. And the world, seeing the fruit of these seeds alone, calls the man good or bad, and thus makes its rude anal

ysis of character, as something set and fixed, stamped upon the soul forever. But in their own time other seeds, perchance ripening late and slowly, come to their day of germination, seeds of unlike nature, with diverse fruit. Such sprout and send their life forth into the man, creating a new nature which the world will not recognize as his. Thus it was happening with this man: commingled in his heart and brain there had lain diverse seeds of many kinds,—seeds of decay and seeds of life. Impulses of creative purpose, of unselfish work, these had been long dormant; impulses of lust and greed and deceit, — these had grown rankly in the feverish life of the city until they had flowered in crime. Now had come to him the time of fate: the first harvest of his acts was garnered, and the new seeds of his life were ready to wake from their inhibition in the depths of his being, and put forth their energies, their demands. Some great shock -the agony of dying men and women had quickened this new growth. So happens the miracle of rebirth, hidden far away from all human observation, revealing itself first in a consciousness of renewed health and purification.

--

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The song of the springtime earth rose ever upward, calming and healing the man, who at last had caught its message. It said to him, "Another sun, a new day, an earth ever fresh from the hand of God! Eternal hope the burial of the corrupt body with its misdeeds; health, and not decay; life, and not death. For life is good! There is forgiveness and renewal for all those who heed." Through the misty heavens above the trees, the stars glimmered faintly. Over the prairie fields and woodland the night wind passed, soft, odorous, charged with the breath of the earth in the conceiving time of life.

Under the starlight of the spring night there might be seen the figure of a man walking steadily southwards toward the black horizon of the great city. He walked neither fast nor slow, but steadily, evenly,

as if urged by one powerful purpose, some magnetic end that set his nerves and his muscles to the rhythm of action.

XXVI

The architect had a long time to wait in Wheeler's office that morning. The lawyer rarely came in before ten, so the stenographer said, looking suspiciously into the man's white, unshaven face. She knew Hart quite well, and she was wondering what was the matter with him,

whether he had been on a spree. He sat in one of the armchairs of the outer office provided for waiting clients, and, looking neither to the right nor to the left, stared at the square of green carpet beneath his feet. When the lawyer entered, with a glance at the seated figure, he said blankly,

"Come in here!"

Wheeler opened the door to his little office, where he had confessed many a man, and without a word pointed to a chair beside his littered desk. Then he sat down and waited, examining the architect's face with his dispassionate eyes.

"Everett, I wanted to see you about Hart began. Then he stopped, as though surprised by his own voice, which sounded far away, unfamiliar, and unused. The lawyer waited a moment for him to continue, and then he asked in his indifferent

did the plans for him. Well, the newspapers were right: there was crooked work. The plans were all altered after they had been through the Building Department. Graves is in with the whole gang over there. He has all the inspectors in his pocket!"

Hart waited again. He was not saying what he came there to tell. His mind seemed strangely unreliant and confused. While he stumbled, the frown on his cousin's face deepened into an ugly crease between the eyes. It said as plainly as words, "What in hell do you come here for, blabbing this to me?" Jackson, reading his look, caught himself and continued more steadily:

"But I did n't come here to talk of the fire. It's about the school. Pemberton was right about that. It was crooked, too! I want to tell you what I know about that."

Wheeler put down the letter-opener, and rested his chin on the tips of his fingers. The architect told his story slowly, without excitement, trying to give all the details, and the exact figures, busying himself with being precise. The matter was complicated, and it led him to speak again of the hotel and of other affairs, of his entire connection with the contractor, to tell the complete story of his business career in the city. The lawyer did not try to stop him, although his face betrayed no inter

est or comment.

"Well, the upshot of the matter is," Hart ended, "that I am through with the whole business, Everett. I am going to get out of it, somehow. And first, I wanted you to know the truth about the school, and to take this for the trustees."

He laid on the desk a large, fat envelope, which he had filled that morning from his safety deposit box.

"There's about thirty thousand there, in stocks and bonds and some land. I thought I would n't wait to put it into cash," he explained. "It's pretty nearly all I have got, Everett. Part of that stock in the Glenmore Graves gave me was for legitimate commission, but I have put

that in, too. You can force Graves to make good the rest. I can figure out for you what he owes. And I'll do what I can to help you make him square the account. If you can't get hold of Graves, why, I'm ready to give you my personal note for the rest and pay it as soon as I can."

Wheeler poked the envelope on the desk without taking it up.

"Conscience money?" he remarked slowly. "I don't want your wad. I wish you had chucked it in the river, done anything with it but brought it here! I fixed that matter up once."

The architect was able to realize the contempt, the ironical humor with which Wheeler's tone was charged, and his lips tightened. But he made no reply. After the experiences of the last two days he cared little for what his cousin might say or think. In some manner he had passed completely outside of the world where such matters counted. He was dulled to all but a few considerations.

"Say!" the lawyer iterated, "I thought we'd closed that little matter for good. But I can tell you there's one person who'll be tickled," he laughed disgustedly. "And that's old Pemberton. He thought you were a scamp from the word go. Now he'll be well set up when the judge tells him this. He'll take an irreligious pleasure in it!"

Hart said nothing, and the two men faced each other sombrely. Finally, the lawyer exclaimed, —

"So you lost your nerve!"

That was not what Hart thought of it, and he winced perceptibly, as he replied:

"Well, you can call it that! And I guess that if you had seen those people dropping into that burning building, and known what I knew Well, what's the use of talking! I am done with the whole thing,—done with it for good."

The lawyer eyed him sharply, unsympathetically, curious, in a cold manner, of the psychology of the man before him. Hart's sturdy body, which was a trifle inclined to fleshiness, seemed to have

shrunken and to be loose in his clothes. The bones of his jaw came out heavily in his unshaven face, and below his eyes the flesh was black, shading into gray. His tweed office suit was rumpled out of shape, and there were signs of the muddy roads on his trousers and boots. Usually so careful and tidy in dress, he now seemed to have lost all consciousness of his appearance.

Wheeler had never felt much respect for his cousin as a young man. Then the lawyer considered him to be somewhat "light-weight," given to feminine interests in art and literature, feeling himself to be above his homely American environment. But since their uncle's death, the architect had won his approval by the practical ability he had shown in pushing his way in the Chicago world, in getting together a flourishing business, and making a success of his profession. Now that there was revealed to him the uncertain means by which this outward success had been obtained, he reverted easily to his earlier judgment. The man was really a light-weight, a weakling. The lawyer despised weaklings: they made the real troubles in this life. He could not see to its depth the tragedy before him, even as the stern Pemberton might have seen it. He merely saw another nasty mess, a scandal that would probably get about the city, even if his cousin and the contractor escaped the Grand Jury for this Glenmore affair. He had little use for men who went wrong and "lost their nerve"!

"Well," he said at last, "you need n't bother about that note just yet. You'll have troubles enough for one while, I expect. I suppose I shall have to take this, though," he tapped the fat envelope,

"and lay the matter before the trustees. I'll let you know what they decide to do." "All right," Hart answered. As he did not rise immediately from his chair, the lawyer turned to his desk with an air of dismissal. When the architect at last got wearily to his feet, Wheeler asked, without looking up,

"Have you seen that man Graves this morning?"

"No, I came here the first thing." "He was in here to see me late yesterday. He seemed afraid that you might split on him in this Glenmore business."

Hart listened, his eyes looking over his cousin's head far out through the office window, his mind concerned with other matters.

"Had n't you better get out of here for a few weeks?" the lawyer suggested casually. "Take a vacation. You seem to need a rest, bad. The papers'll quiet down after a while, — they always do," he added explanatorily.

As a matter of fact, he had promised the contractor that he would do what he could to keep Hart from making any trouble. It was obviously best for the architect to be out of sight for the present, in some safe place where he could not be got at for awkward explanations.

"I've been thinking of going away for a few days," Jackson replied slowly, a flush spreading over his pallid face. "I'm going on to the Falls to see Helen. But I'm not going to run away. They can find me when they want me. And I shall be back before long, anyway."

Wheeler did not tell him that the coroner had already summoned his jury, and that the first inquiry was to begin the next day. If he were going to Vermont, it was just as well that he should get away before he was summoned by the coroner.

"Well," he said, taking another look at his cousin, "whatever you do, get your nerve together. Men like you should n't play with fire. They'd better stick to the straight game!"

The architect knew what that meant! If he had been some cunning promoter who had had wit enough to swindle the public out of any sum of money that ran into the millions, or if he had been some banker who had known how to ruin the credit of an enterprise which he wished to buy cheaply, Wheeler would have extended to him a cynical tolerance, and if his honesty were questioned, would have