n your telegram
came from Boston to Mr. Lassley at New York, I was going with the
Lassleys--not to Norway, but to Paris, to try to persuade Doctor Perard,
the great alienist, to come over and be our guest at Castle 'Cadia. It
seemed to be the only remaining hope. But when you telegraphed your
changed plans, I knew I couldn't go; I knew I must come home. And in
spite of all, he has tried three times to kill you. You know he must be
insane; tell me you know it," she pleaded.

"Since it lifts a burden too heavy to be borne, I am very willing to
believe it," he rejoined gravely. "I understand quite fully now. And it
makes no difference--between us, I mean. You must not let it make a
difference. Let the past be past, and let us come back to the present.
Where is your father now?"

"After dinner he went with Mr. Wingfield and Otto to the upper canyon.
There is a breakwater at the canyon portal which they hoped might save
the power-house and laboratory from being undermined by the river, and
they were going to strengthen it with bags of sand. I was afraid of what
might come afterward--that you might be here alone and unsuspecting. So
I persuaded Cousin Janet and the others to make up the car-party."

From where they were sitting at the derrick's foot, the great boom
leaned out like a giant's arm uplifted above the canyon lake. With the
moon sweeping toward the zenith, the shadow of the huge iron beam was
clearly cut on the surface of the water. Ballard's eye had been
mechanically marking the line of shadow and its changing position as the
water level rose in the Elbow.

"The reservoir is filling a great deal faster than I supposed it would,"
he said, bearing his companion resolutely away from the painful things.

"There have been storms on the main range all day," was the reply.
"Father has a series of electrical signal stations all along the upper
canyon. He said at the dinner-table that the rise to-night promises to
be greater than any we have ever seen."

Ballard came alive upon the professional side of him with a sudden
quickening of the workaday faculties. With the utmost confidence in that
part of the great retaining-wall for which he was personally
responsible--the superstructure--he had still been hoping that the huge
reservoir lake would fill normally; that the dam would not be called
upon to take its enormous stresses like an engine starting under a full
load. It was for this reason that he had been glad to tim