Still feeling strangely restless, he moved again to the window, and just then Elsie and Belding walked slowly past the blockhouse toward the tiny Hudson Bay lock. Involuntarily he tapped on the pane. They both looked up and he beckoned. When they mounted to the living room, he met them with a smile. Elsie glanced about with intense interest. She had been there once before, but with a group of visitors. This occasion seemed more intimate. She surveyed Clark a little breathlessly and with an overwhelming sensation that here was the nerve center of this whole gigantic enterprise. Belding felt a shade awkward as he caught the glance of the gray eyes. "Sit down and have some coffee." Clark clapped his hands softly and the Japanese cook emerged from below. Presently their host began to talk with a certain comfortable ease that gave the girl a new glimpse of what the man might really be. "The directors are coming up this week--that means more work for you, Belding." The engineer nodded. Then the other man went on with the fluent confidence of one who knows the world. Persia, India, Russia,--he had been everywhere. "But what brought you here, Mr. Clark?" put in the girl presently. Her eyes were very bright. He turned to her: "What would you say?" "Was it destiny?" she answered slowly. "Yes," he replied with sudden gravity and a strange look at her bright eyes, "I think it was destiny." Her heart beat more rapidly, and from Clark her glance moved to Belding who sat a little awkwardly. There was not more than fifteen years between them but Clark's face had that peculiarly ageless appearance which characterizes some men and lends them additional interest. "And now you'll stay?" added Elsie. "Don't you think there's enough to keep me?" Belding roused himself with a chuckle but Clark went on thoughtfully. "Do you see much change in St. Marys in the last few years?" "Before you came," she said slowly, "it was just--just Arcadia." "Are you sorry to say good-by to Arcadia?" She shook her head, smiling. "Not a bit; I am glad it's over, but I remember father often talking about the old days long before any of us were here. First there were just the Indians, and then the Jesuit priests. They used to paddle up the Ottawa River to Lake Nipissing and then down the French River to the Georgian Bay, and so up Lake Huron round the rapids and on into Lake Superior. After them came the traders and then the Hudson Bay Company, but," she concluded a little apologetically, "you know all about that." "Yes, I know, and now what do the people of St. Marys think about the works? Eh, Belding, what do you say?" "They don't think very much, sir--they've got into the way of taking them for granted." Clark laughed. "I think I know that too. But you don't take me for granted?" Here he glanced provocatively at Elsie.