Winston was standing on the apron of the dam looking out over the great reservoir that in the moonlight lay like a plate of burnished steel between the pine-clad granite hills that dipped steeply into the water. The dam was already filled to the brim, and the full volume of the Sangre de Cristo was sweeping through the weir and plunging into the cañon below. The sights and sounds only deepened Winston's oppression. His work was done; the work he loved so well. The future held nothing so bright as the past had held. Only, in the future, was there to be the dull routine of office work, the laying off of orange groves, the running out of ditches that would lead the water to them; simple work this that any tyro who could set a level and read an angle, could perform. No intricate problems that absorbed every energy of an active mind, that blotted out consciousness of time and self in delicious oblivion of existence; no obstacles of nature that lifted a forbidding hand "thus far and no farther;" no thrill of determined battle that rushed against these obstacles and bore them down. His field had been sown; the harvest was waiting for him to thrust in and reap, what? Money; that was all. Money that would only intensify his consciousness of an existence that like rank vegetation throve aimlessly only to rot and thrive again. What would love, even Helen's love, mean to him? Would that, assured, satisfy him, or would it, possessed, be to him like his work that was done? What had drawn them together but an intense, absorbing, common interest? This mood was strange to Winston. He could, and did, reason himself out of it; but its influence remained. In his cabin, which was his office as well, he wrapped his blankets around him and lay down to sleep. Helen's night was sleepless. She had retired early, not to sleep, as she knew, but that in solitude she might try to think out more clearly her course of action. Her admiration for Winston had increased a thousand-fold, if that were possible; and he had offered her his love to crown it all, and she had seemed to weigh it in her hands, as a Jew might bite a piece of gold to try its worth. She had done this when every fiber of her heart cried out against it, demanding that she should render to Ralph his own. Why had she turned even seemingly against Ralph, against herself? Only that she might do penance for her sin. Was not that it after all? But she was innocent of any intentional wrong. Was it not selfishness, this penance which she was imposing upon herself? Was she not compelling Ralph to bear a part of her punishment, demanding that he wait in doubt till she could declare herself purified? Was it not pride and selfish pride which demanded that through Elijah's redemption she should be declared free?