of our daily thoughts can be felt in a vague and poignant discomfort
of mind. It hurt Charles Gould to feel that never more, by no effort of
will, would he be able to think of his father in the same way he used
to think of him when the poor man was alive. His breathing image was
no longer in his power. This consideration, closely affecting his own
identity, filled his breast with a mournful and angry desire for action.
In this his instinct was unerring. Action is consolatory. It is the
enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions. Only in the
conduct of our action can we find the sense of mastery over the Fates.
For his action, the mine was obviously the only field. It was imperative
sometimes to know how to disobey the solemn wishes of the dead.
He resolved firmly to make his disobedience as thorough (by way of
atonement) as it well could be. The mine had been the cause of an absurd
moral disaster; its working must be made a serious and moral success.
He owed it to the dead man's memory. Such were the--properly
speaking--emotions of Charles Gould. His thoughts ran upon the means
of raising a large amount of capital in San Francisco or elsewhere; and
incidentally there occurred to him also the general reflection that the
counsel of the departed must be an unsound guide. Not one of them
could be aware beforehand what enormous changes the death of any given
individual may produce in the very aspect of the world.

The latest phase in the history of the mine Mrs. Gould knew from
personal experience. It was in essence the history of her married life.
The mantle of the Goulds' hereditary position in Sulaco had descended
amply upon her little person; but she would not allow the peculiarities
of the strange garment to weigh down the vivacity of her character,
which was the sign of no mere mechanical sprightliness, but of an
eager intelligence. It must not be supposed that Mrs. Gould's mind was
masculine. A woman with a masculine mind is not a being of