“If anything was needed when I awoke at noon to-day to make me feel as if I owned the entire universe,” he said, “it was a letter from my chief electrician which convinced me for the first time that he was on the verge of perfecting this old dream of mine. My father was to go out as soon as telegraphed for and witness the practical demonstration. Then, indeed, I practically will hold the fate of the world in the hollow of my hand.” Ranata stared hard at him, her pulse quickening. She had always envied him, and now he seemed to her to embody all the hopeful ambitions of all the world, a Titan whom only a new country with its utter disregard of failure could have produced. What order of men would his republics bring forth? “But shall you never have a reverse, never fail?” she murmured. “There is a relentless law of compensation in Nature; surely you must have your blows, your bitterness, like other mortals.” “I have already had enough trouble and anxiety, to say nothing of hideous privations, fatigue, and illness to satisfy Nature for the present. The only blow that could have reached my heart before this would have been the death of my father.” “Ah!” she exclaimed sharply, “you do love me--I know how much! When this is over, will its memory mean as much to you as it will to me? Will the loss embitter, discourage you? It has seemed to me since last night that it will mean too much to me--that I shall need more courage than I possess to live on. With men--with you? How would it be, with your thousand occupations where I might not have one? Oh, at least help me to win this country! I fear no enemies--nothing else on earth.” “All that,” said Fessenden, “is a subject which I positively refuse to discuss until these two months are up. All I wish you to be firmly convinced of from this moment--and you might repeat it nightly with your prayers lest you forget it--is that, under no possible circumstances short of death, shall I give you up, or relax for a moment in my determination to overcome every obstacle which either you or your father may raise. The sooner you recognize me as your destiny the better.” XXII