s, the centre of the subconscious processes which
culminated in this revelation. Yes, Fred Arthurs at twenty-five must
have been such a man as Jim Travers. Jim Travers at fifty would be
such a man as Fred Arthurs. She was absolutely sure of it. Jim was
living his own life, seeking out that which was worth while, culling
the incidental from the essential, just as Fred Arthurs must have
done. She remembered with sudden joy how Jim had held a little
kindness to her of greater moment than the impatient engine in the
plough-field; the scores of little labours he had undertaken, not as
a sacrifice, but as a privilege--as his contribution to human
happiness. She would marry Jim Travers. The strange part of it was
her sudden certainty that she should marry him. She found herself
enveloped in a flame of possession, a feeling that he was hers--hers
now, this minute, and hers for ever. Beulah was a fatalist, although
she had never analyzed her own beliefs enough to know it, but she
knew that Destiny had linked her life with his and that Destiny would
not be balked. Her mind had been feeling its way, through the
darkness of months, to this sudden ecstasy, but now that she had
reached it she felt that it could never, never fail her. Her sense of
possession, of mergement, was complete; she felt that already their
souls had mingled irrevocably and indistinguishably.

The arrival of her mother at the Arthurses' ranch had brought fresh
joy to Beulah's life. She saw the colour coming back to the old face,
the frame straightening up a little, the light rekindling in the eye,
the spring returning to the instep. She had not thought that her
mother, after twenty-five years of unprotesting submission, had still
the nerve to place a limit on that submission, and the discovery had
surprised and delighted her. True, Mary Harris let it be known that
she was only on a visit, and in due course would return to her home;
but Beulah knew the die had been cast, and things could never again
be quite as they were. And Beulah told her secret, and her mother
just kissed her and let a tear or two fall in her hair.

So this morning, as the girl stretched her young limbs, rounding with
life and energy, and the burnt-orange glow of sunrise suffused the
room and lit the pink tissues of her slender fingers, she rested in
the deep peace which, ever since her revelation, had enveloped her
about. For a minute she let her mind dwell on the picture she carried
in h