“I _was_ a lost woman,” interrupted Mrs. Virey, her voice rising out of the strong, sweet melody. “I had my pride, and I defied the husband whose heart I broke and whose life I ruined. I scorned the punishment, the exile he meted out to me. That was because I was thoroughbred. But all the same I was lost. Lost to happiness, to hope, to effort, to repentance, to spiritual uplift. Death Valley will be my tomb, but there will be resurrection for me.... It is you, Wansfell, you have been my salvation.... _You_ have the power. It has come from your strife and agony on the desert. It is beyond riches, beyond honor. It is the divine in you that seeks and finds the divine in unfortunates who cross your wandering trail.” Adam, rendered mute, could only offer his hand; and in silence he led her down the slope. * * * * * That afternoon, near the close of the hot hours, Adam lay in the shade of the brush shelter he had erected near the Virey shack. He was absorbed in watching a tribe of red ants, and his posture was so unusual that it gave pause to Virey, who had come down from the slope. The man approached and curiously gazed at Adam, to see what he was doing. “Looking for grains of gold?” inquired Virey, with sarcasm. “I’ll lend you my magnifying glass.” “I’m watching these red ants,” replied Adam, without looking up. Virey bent over and, having seen, he slowly straightened up. “Go to the ant, thou sluggard!” he ejaculated, and this time without sarcasm. “Virey, I’m no sluggard,” returned Adam. “It’s you who are that. I’m a worker.” “Wansfell, I was not meaning you,” said Virey. “There are things I hate you for, but laziness is certainly not included in them.... I never worked in my life. I had money left me. It was a curse. I thought I could buy everything. I bought a wife--the big-eyed woman to whom you devote your services--and your attentions.... And I bought for myself the sweetness of the deadly nightshade flower--a statue of marble, chiseled in the beautiful curves of mocking love--a woman of chain lightning and hate.... If I had lived by industry, as live those red ants you’re watching, I might not now have one foot in my grave in Death Valley.” Thus there were rare instances when Virey appeared a man with the human virtues of regret, of comprehension, of intolerance, but never a word issued from his lips that was not tinged with bitterness. Had the divinity in him been blasted forever? Or was it a submerged spark that could quicken only to a touch of the woman lost to him? Adam wondered. Sometimes a feeling of pity for Virey stole over him, but it never lasted long. Adam had more respect for these red ants than for some men, despite the alleged divinity. He abhorred the drones of life. The desert taught how useless were the idlers--how nature ruthlessly cut them off.