n looked thoughtfully into the glowing eyes bent full upon
him. The impulse was strong within him to do as the man before him
wished--almost compelled--him to do; but because of this subtle power
which moved him so strongly, he hesitated. To what further lengths might
it not impel him when the first step had been taken? Clear-eyed,
clear-headed, never so cautious as when his desires called most loudly
to him, he hesitated to take the first step in the path which Elijah
Berl had so insistently opened before him. Therefore he spoke
deliberately, almost coldly.

"Don't misunderstand me, Elijah. I have faith in you and I have more
faith in your idea. For this very reason I hesitate to accept your
offer. You and I are so different. I--"

Elijah interrupted impatiently.

"I have thought of all that. I have prayed over it. 'Be ye not unequally
yoked together with unbelievers,' and as the voice from heaven came to
Paul, even so it came to me--'What God hath cleansed, that call not thou
common.'"

A smile flickered for a moment on the lips of the young engineer as he
turned to a pretty little woman who, with her light sewing in her hands,
was rocking gently on the wide verandah.

"What do you think about it, Amy?"

Amy Berl drew her needle the full length of the thread and held it
poised for a moment as she made reply.

"Elijah knows what is best, Ralph." Then, with a swift glance at her
husband, she again bent over her work.

"Of course he knows some things--"

"He knows every thing." Amy did not raise her eyes from her work this
time.

With a sigh of impatience, Elijah threw himself into a chair near his
wife. The needle dropped from the hand which she timidly rested upon
his, while her eyes sought his face. Absorbed in himself, not a quiver
responded to the touch of Amy's hand, not a glance answered the caress
of her eyes.

It was a pretty picture in a grandly beautiful setting. A wide verandah,
covered with climbing roses in full bloom, opened upon a scene almost
tropical in its beauty. Down the redwood steps the eyes wandered across
a luxuriant flower garden, still lower they rested upon a great square
of dark, shining green; below this, in sharp contrast, and surrounding
the shining green, tawny sand pricked in with tufts and clumps of dusty,
green sage, rolling hills in descending cadence, till, in the far
distance, a grayer, wimpling gray, the great Pacific marked the limits
of the desert.

To the left,