“No--no!” cried Adam, huskily. “You only imagine that. It’s only the oppression of these winds--and the terror of the night--this awful, unearthly valley of death. You’ll live. The winds will wear out soon. If only you fight you’ll live.... And to-morrow--Magdalene, so help me God--I’ll take you away!” He expected the inflexible and magnetic opposition of her will, the resistless power of her spirit to uplift and transform. And this time he was adamant. At last the desert force within him had arisen above all spiritual obstacles. The thing that called was life--life as it had been in the beginning of time. But no mockery or eloquence of refusal was forthcoming from Magdalene Virey. Instead, she placed the little ivory case, containing the miniature painting of her daughter Ruth, in Adam’s hand and softly pressed it there. “But--if I should die--I want you to have this picture of Ruth,” she said. “I’ve had to hide it from Virey--to gaze upon it in his absence. Take it, my friend, and keep it, and look at it until it draws you to her.... Wansfell, I’ll not bewilder you by mystic prophecies. But I tell you solemnly--with the clairvoyant truth given to a woman who feels the presence of death--that my daughter Ruth will cross your wanderer’s trail--come into your life--and love you.... Remember what I tell you. I see!... You are a young man still. She is a budding girl. You two will meet, perhaps in your own wastelands. Ruth is all of me--magnified a thousand times. More--she is as lovely as an unfolding rose at dawn. She will be a white, living flame.... It will be as if I had met you long ago--when I was a girl--and gave you what by the nature of life was yours.... Wansfell, you wakened my heart--saved my soul--taught me peace.... I wonder how you did it. You were just a man.... There’s a falseness of life--the scales fell from my eyes one by one. It is the heart, the flesh, the bursting stream of red blood that count with nature. All this strife, this travail, makes toward a perfection never to be attained. But effort and pain, agony of flesh, and victory over mind make strength, virility.... Nature loves barbarian women who nurse their children. I--with all my love--could not nurse my baby Ruth. It’s a mystery no longer. Death Valley and a primitive man have opened my eyes. Nature did not intend people to live in cities, but in forests, as lived the Aryans of India, or like the savages of Brazilian jungles. Like the desert beasts, self-sufficient, bringing forth few of their kind, but better, stronger species. The weak perish. So should the weak among men.... Ah! hear the roar! Another wind of death!... But I’ve said all.... Wansfell, go find Ruth--find me in her--and--remember!”