He lighted his pipe again, and as the match blazed up she saw the absent
look still in his eyes. By it she realised how far away from her he
was--realised it with a little sharp sense of desolation. He smoked a
while before speaking.

"Out there in the mountains, Nance, I thought about these things a long
time--the years went before I knew it. At first I stayed with this
healing chap, only after a while he started back to teach again and they
found him dead. He believed he had a mission to save the world, and that
he would live until he accomplished it. But there he was, dead for want
of a little food. Then I stayed a long time alone--until I began to feel
that I, too, had something for the world. It began to burn in my bones.
I thought of him, dead and the world not caring that he hadn't saved
it--not even knowing it was lost. But I kept thinking--a man can be so
much more than himself when he is alone--and it seemed to me that I saw
at least two things the world needed to know--two things that would
teach men to stop being cowards and leaners."

Her sympathy was quick and ardent.

"Oh, Bernal," she said warmly, "you made me believe when you believed
nothing--and now, when I need it above all other times, you make me
believe again! And you've come back with a message! How glorious!"

He smiled musingly.

"I started with one, Nance--one that had grown in me all those years
till it filled my life and made me put away everything. I didn't accept
it at first. It found me rebellious--wanting to live on the earth. Then