It was the only apology Vic had ever offered to Burgess, who accepted it as all that he deserved. “We learn more from men than from books sometimes. I've learned from them how courageous a man may be when the need for sacrifice comes. Sit down, Burleigh, and let me tell you something.” They sat down on the low seat beside the dome windows. Overhead gleamed the message of high courage, _Ad Astra Per Aspera_. Below was the artistic beauty of the rotunda, where the evening shadows were deepening. “We are higher than we were that other day. We care less for fighting as we get farther up, maybe,” Burgess said, pleasantly. “The only place to fight a man is in a cave, anyhow,” Burleigh replied, looking at his brawny arms, nor dreaming how prophetic his words might be. “We don't belong to that class of men now, whatever our far off ancestors may have been, but we are the sons of our fathers, Burleigh, and it is left to the living to right the wrongs the dead have begun.” Then, briefly, Vincent Burgess, A.B., Greek Professor from Harvard, told to Vic Burleigh from a prairie claim out beyond the Walnut, a part of what he had already told to Dennie Saxon, of the funds withheld from him so long. Told it in general terms, however, not shielding his father at all, but giving no hint that the first Victor Burleigh was his own brother-in-law. And of the compact with Joshua Wream and of Norrie he told nothing. “Three days ago I did not know that you could be heir to this property,” he concluded. “I've been interested in books and have left legal matters to those who controlled them for me.” He rose hastily, for Burleigh, saying nothing, was looking at him with wide-open brown eyes that seemed to look straight into his soul. “I can restore your property to you. I cannot change the past. You have all the future in which to use it better than my father did, or I might have done. Goodnight.” He turned away and passed slowly down the rotunda stairs. When he was gone Victor Burleigh turned to the open window of the dome. He was not to blame that the beautiful earth under a magnificent December sunset sky seemed all his own now. “'If big, handsome Victor Burleigh had his corners knocked off and was sandpapered down,'” he mused. “Well, what corners I haven't knocked off myself have been knocked off for me and I've been sandpapered--Lord, I've been sandpapered down all right. I'm at home on a carpet now. 'And if he had money'.” Vic's face was triumphant. “It has come at last--the money. And what of Elinor?” The sacred memories of brief fleeting moments with her told him “what of Elinor.” “The barriers are down now. It is a glorious old world. I must hunt up Trench and then--” He closed the dome window, looked a moment at the brave Kansas motto, radiant in the sunset light, and then, picking up his tools, he went downstairs. “Hello, Trench I he called as he reached the rotunda floor. I must see you a minute.”