Meanwhile Harlan was labouring steadfastly at his manuscript. The glowing fancy from which the book had sprung was quite gone. Still, as he cut, rearranged, changed, interlined, reconstructed and polished, he was not wholly unsatisfied with his work. "It may not be very good," he said to himself, "but it's the best I can do--now. The next will be better, I'm sure." He knew, even then, that there would be a "next one," for the eternal thirst which knows no quenching had seized upon his inmost soul. Hereafter, by an inexplicably swift reversion, he should see all life as literature, and literature as life. Friends and acquaintances should all be, in his inmost consciousness, ephemeral. And Dorothy--dearly as he loved her, was separated from him as by a veil. Still, as he worked, he came gradually to a better adjustment, and was very tenderly anxious that Dorothy should see no change in him. He had not yet reached the point, however, where he would give it all up for the sake of finding things real again, if only for an hour. Day after day, his work went on. Sometimes he would spend an hour searching for a single word, rightly to express his meaning. Page after page was re-copied upon the typewriter, for, with the nice conscience of a good workman, Harlan desired a perfect manuscript, at least in mechanical details. Finally, he came to the last page and printed "The End" in capitals with deep satisfaction. "When it's sandpapered," he said to himself, "and the dust blown off, I suppose it will be done." The "sandpapering" took a week longer. At the end of that time, Harlan concluded that any manuscript was done when the writer had read it carefully a dozen times without making a single change in it. On a Saturday night, just as the hall clock was booming eleven, he pushed it aside, and sat staring blankly at the wall for a long time. "I don't know what I've got," he thought, "but I've certainly got two hundred and fifty pages of typed manuscript. It should be good for something--even at space rates." After dinner, Sunday, he told them that the book was ready, and they all went out into the orchard. Dick was resigned, Elaine pleasantly excited, Dorothy eager and aflame with triumphant pride, Harlan self-conscious, and, in a way, ashamed. As he read, however, he forgot everything else. The mere sound of the words came with caressing music to his ears. At times his voice wavered and his hands trembled, but he kept on, until it grew so dark that he could no longer see. They went into the house silently, and Dick touched a match to the fire already laid in the fireplace, while Dorothy lighted the candles and the reading lamp. The afterglow faded and the moon rose, yet still they rode with Elaine and her company, through mountain passes and over blossoming fields, past many dangers and strange happenings, and ever away from the Castle of Content.