sk. She knew there was a chance that she might not find
happiness in her love. But where it called her she must follow--to a
larger life certainly, to joy and to sorrow, to the fuller experiences
that must come to every woman who fulfills her destiny.

A voice hailed Jack. Colter was hurrying up the street, plainly excited.
Kilmeny moved a few steps toward him.

Lady Jim took advantage of his absence to attack Moya from another
angle. "My dear, I wish I could show you how much depends on a
similarity of tastes, of habits, of standards. Matrimony means more than
love. It means adjustment."

"I've thought of that too. But ... when you love enough that doesn't
help the adjustment?" asked the girl naively.

She had appealed to Farquhar. That gentleman came to her assistance. "It
does."

"This isn't a matter to be decided merely by personal preference," urged
the older woman. "There may be--consequences."

The color beat into the face of the young woman in a wave, but her eyes
held steadily to those of Lady Farquhar.

"I ... hope so."

"Bravo, Moya!" applauded her guardian, clapping his hands softly.

"Don't you think they--the consequences--deserve a better chance than
you will give them?"

"I'll answer that, Di," spoke up Farquhar. "When a girl chooses for the
father of her children a man who is clean and strong and virile, and on
top of that her lover, she is giving them the best possible chance in
life."

Moya's gratitude shone through the eyes that met those of her guardian.

Kilmeny swung back to the group he had left. "I've good news, friends.
This is my lucky day. You remember that when I was rescued from the
Golden Nugget my pockets were full of ore samples I had picked up as I
was tunneling."

"Yes ... picked them up while you were delirious, didn't you?" Farquhar
replied.

"Must have, I reckon. Well, you know how miners are always having pieces
of quartz assayed. Colter took these to the man we employ. He's just
learned that it is high-grade stuff."

"You've made a strike?"

"Looks like it. Colter wasn't taking any chances, anyhow. He hiked right
around to the owners of the mine and signed up a five-year lease in his
name and mine."

Farquhar shook hands with him cordially. "Hope you make a fortune,
Kilmeny."

Moya's chaperon, facing the inevitable, capitulated as graceful as she
could. After all, the girl might have done worse. The man she had chosen
was well born, good looking, forceful,