ng. Let's do that."

He hesitated.

"Couldn't be done, dear. It wouldn't be----"

"Safe?"

"Practicable."

"You don't trust me."

"Of course I trust you," he said putting his arms round her. "I've
trusted you from the moment we first met and I'm going on trusting you
all the rest of my life. Isn't that good enough?"

"Not nearly," she answered and rose to her feet.

"Isabel," he said very seriously. "When I tell you that there are huge
interests at stake--that all this is for something that--that defeats
imagination, surely you will take my word."

She pressed a finger to her chin.

"Huge interests means money."

"It does," he replied, "but money on a colossal scale--illimitable.
Doesn't that appeal to you?"

"No," she said. "I've all I want and you're well enough off. What's the
good of more?"

"Just listen," he said. "If I bring off this deal there is no wish in
the world one couldn't gratify, and bring it off I shall."

He started to pace up and down the narrow floor space of the tiny room,
his hands opening and shutting and a light of enthusiasm dancing in his
eyes. It was not the money face he wore as he spoke but the expression
of the man of deeds, the man who joyed in accomplishment, in vanquishing
difficulty, in facing long odds, buoyed up and carried along by the will
to win.

"You can't understand, my dear, all this means to me and will mean to
you. I haven't even imagined it myself. Think! We could buy islands,
build hospitals, govern nations if the mood prompted us. And all for
three weeks' work. Lord, it's--Oh! if I could make you see how big it
is--how magnificent."

And womanlike she responded,

"I want you, Tony, the rest only frightens me."

"Forget the money," he said, "and bear this in mind. If I succeed the
world will be richer by a tremendous healing force."

"A medicine?"

"Call it a medicine. It's lying out in the open within a little march of
the common ways of men and women. I tumbled on the find by a stroke of
luck and a little knowledge and a word inside me that whispered, 'Look,
go and look.' You've read Kipling's 'Explorer'--I read it you.
'Something lost behind the ranges--something hidden, go you there.' It
was like that with me--a pringly feeling--a kind of second
sense--expectancy--belief--certainty. Nature has a trick of showing the
combination of her treasure safe to one man before the rest--and I was
the man."

The little chestnut head