Day by day he rode backward and forward from his hillside cottage to Gascester, through the misty dawn and the white moonlight. Like a man at bay he fought his madness--he, the grimy mechanic in grease-stained clothing, who had drawn an evil poison into his veins. Heart and soul he flung himself with grim determination into his great work. The wheels of his models whirred and the great pistons throbbed with life. Out of chaos there resolved itself before him a problem to be solved--beyond was fortune immeasurable. So he toiled, not discouraged by many failures, grim and unswerving in his resolve to struggle through into the light. It was in those days that Strone's ambition, kindled long enough ago, burst suddenly into full flame. He neglected his reading and his solitary country rambles for a spell of downright hard work. Many nights he remained at the works long after the workpeople had left, locked in his shed, with a single light burning--laboring always at the same apparently confused collection of wheels and strangely shaped pieces of metal which were to do the work of ten machines or a hundred men. His progress was slow, and a less forceful man would long ago have been discouraged. There was a point beyond which movement seemed impossible. Ever he was hammering away, as many others had done before him, at a problem which seemed insoluble. He rode backward and forward like a man in a dream. Ever those wheels seemed flying round before his eyes, and somewhere between them and the piston rod there was a link--but where? He told himself plainly that the thing was possible. Some day it would come to him. He had always told himself that. Only whereas a few months ago he had contemplated the end with a sort of leisurely curiosity, he felt himself impelled to work now with a feverish haste, as though time had suddenly closed in upon him. * * * * * At last the day came when Strone lay on the short turf, smoking quietly, looking out upon the glimmering world with new eyes. Sphinxlike he gazed with an impassivity somewhat to be wondered at, for an hour ago he had finished his task. Those silent days, those long spells of work, when day had become fused into night and night into day, had left their mark upon him. His face was thinner, his eyes almost brilliant, a slight feverishness had flushed his cheeks. The man's sense of power had grown and deepened. For he had faced great problems, he had bent great forces to his will. He had succeeded where other men had failed.