o
allow yourself to feel the personality of inanimate things too much."

"I know. I know. And this terrible beast"--she paused, trying to steady
her voice; her whole body trembled--"would remind me constantly of those
awful Alaska peaks--the ones that crowded--threatened him."

Tisdale's face cleared. So that was the trouble. Now he understood. "Then
it's all right"--the minor notes in his voice, vibrating softly, had the
quality of a caress--"don't worry any more. I am going to buy this land of
David's. Trust me to see the project through."

CHAPTER XII

"WHOM THE GODS WOULD DESTROY"

Hope is an insistent thing. It may be strangled, lie cold and buried deep
in the heart of a man, yet suddenly, without premonition, he may feel it
rise and stretch small hands, groping towards a ray of light. So in that
reminiscent hour while the train labored up through the Cascades to the
great tunnel, Tisdale told himself this woman--the one woman for whom he
must have been waiting all these years, at whose coming old and cherished
memories had faded to shadows--was very near to loving him. Already she
knew that those mysterious forces she called Fate had impelled them out of
their separate orbits through unusual ways, to meet. Sometime--he would
not press her, he could be patient--but sometime she would surely pay him
that debt.

He dwelt with new interest on his resemblance to Weatherbee, and he told
himself it was her constancy to David that had kept her safe. Then it came
over him that if Weatherbee had married her instead of the Spanish woman,
that must have been an insurmountable barrier between them to-day. As long
as they lived, she must have remained sacred on her pedestal, out of
reach. But how nobly partisan she was; how ready to cross swords for
Weatherbee's wife. That was the incredible test; her capacity for loving
was great.

The porter was turning on the lights. Tisdale moved a little and looked
across the aisle. For that one moment he was glad Weatherbee had made his
mistake. She was so incomparable, so adorable. Any other woman must have
lost attractiveness, shown at least the wear and tear of that mountain
journey, but her weariness appealed to him as her buoyancy had not. She
had taken off her hat to rest her head on the high, cushioned back of the
seat, and the drooping curves of her short upper lip, the blue shadows
under those outward curling black lashes, roused a new emotion, the
paternal, in th