mpelled to look, as
you once did, at bare, gaunt souls or"--a pause--"set to work and make
souls."

Manly twisted in his seat uneasily. Northrup went on.

"Manly"--he spoke quietly, evenly--"do you remember our last talk in
this office before I left?"

"Well, some of it. Yes."

"Jogs, you know. Mountain peaks, baby hands, women faces, and souls?"

"Oh! yes. Sick talk to a sick man." Manly snapped his fingers.

"Manly, what did you mean by saying that you had once seen your soul?"
Northrup was in dead earnest. Manly swung around in his swivel chair.

"I meant that I saw mine once," he said sharply, definitely.

"How did it look?"

"As if I had neglected it. A shrunken, shivering thing." Manly stopped
suddenly, then added briefly: "You cannot starve that part of you,
Northrup, without a get-back some day."

"No. And that's exactly what I am up against--the get-back!"

After that talk with Manly, Northrup, singularly enough, felt as if he
had arrived at some definite conclusion; had received instructions as
to his direction. He was quietly elated and, sitting in his office,
experienced the peace and satisfaction of one who spiritually submits
to a higher Power.

The globe of light on the peak of his tower seemed, humorously, to
have become his headlight--Manly's figures of speech clung--its white
and red flashes, its moments of darkness, were like the workings of
his mind, but he knew no longer the old depression. He was on the main
line, and he had his orders--secret ones, so far, but safe ones.

Kathryn grew more charming as time passed. She did not seem to resent
Northrup's detachment, though the tower room lured him dangerously.
Once she had hinted that she'd love to see his workshop; hear some of
his work. But Northrup had put her off.

"Wait, dear, until I've finished the thing, and then you and I will
have a regular gorge of it, up in my tower."

Kathryn at this put up her mouth to be kissed while behind her
innocent smile she was picturing the girl of King's Forest in those
awful muddy trousers! _She_ had heard the book in the making; she had
not been pushed aside.

More and more Mary-Clare became a stumbling block to Kathryn. She felt
she was a dangerous type; the kind men never could understand, until
it was too late, and never forgot. And Brace _was_ changed. The subtle
unrest did not escape Kathryn.

"I wonder----" And Kathryn did wonder. Wondered most at the
possibility of Mary-Clare ever