"Yes," he answered with a sigh, "a world of endless beauty in which after all there's nothing vile but man. And I once thought that in such a world angels only could live."
"Must we despair because one man or woman proves false," she asked.
"No," he answered cheerily, leading her to a boulder and taking his seat by her side.
"I don't despair. I've been seeing visions to-day—visions as old as the beat of the human heart, perhaps, yet always new."
He drew the order of Wolf from his pocket and looked at it.
"From the moment of my awakening last night from the fool's paradise in which I've been living the past year my mind has been at work on solving the one unsolved problem in this dredge to which he refers. It came to me like a flash while at work this morning."
"Your invention will succeed?" she interrupted.
"Beyond the shadow of a doubt," he said, with enthusiasm. "I didn't solve it before because I lacked the incentive to apply my mind to it."
"And you got the incentive in your defeat?" she asked, in surprise.
"Yes. Deprived of my toys, I came back to myself, the source of power."