You are going to be a mother. All other events in life pale before this fact. God has conferred on you the highest honor He can give to mortal. Keep your soul serene, your body strong. You are to worry about nothing----"

"I must pay you for this extra expense I impose, Doctor. I have a thousand dollars in bank in New York," she interrupted.

"Certainly, if you will be happier. My home is now your sanitarium. You are my patient. Your board will cost me about eight dollars a week. All right. You can pay that if you wish.

"Take no thought now except on the business of being a mother. I will make myself your father, your brother, your guardian, your physician, your friend and companion. I will give you at once a course of reading.

You are to think only beautiful thoughts, see beautiful things, dream beautiful dreams, hear beautiful music. I'm going to make you climb these mountain peaks with me for the next three months and live among the clouds. I'm going to refit your room with new furniture and pictures and place in it a phonograph with the best music. When you are strong enough you can work for me three hours a day as my secretary. You use the typewriter?"

"I'm an expert----"

"Good! I'm writing a book which I'm going to call 'The Rulers of the World.' It is a study of Motherhood. I am one who believes that the redemption of humanity awaits the realization by woman of her divine call. When woman knows that she is really a co-creator with God in the reproduction of the race, a new era will dawn for mankind. You promise me faithfully to obey my instructions?"

"Faithfully."

"You're a wonderful subject on which to make an experiment. You are young--in the first dawn of the glory of womanhood. Your body is beautiful, your mind singularly pure and sweet. You must give me at once the full power of your will in its concentration on Truth and Beauty.

The success or failure of this experiment will depend almost entirely on your mentality and the use you make of it during these months in which your babe is being formed. Whatever the shape of the body there is one eternal certainty--only YOUR mind can reach the soul of this child.

If the father were the veriest fiend who ever existed and should concentrate his mind to the task, not one thought from his darkened soul could reach your babe! YOUR mind will be the ever-brooding, enfolding spirit forming and fashioning character."

He paused and his deep brown eyes flashed with enthusiasm.

"Think of it! You are now creating an immortal being whose word may bend a million wills to his. And you are doing this mighty work solely by your mind. The physical processes are simple and automatic.

"The first lesson you must learn and hold with deathless grip is that thoughts are things. A thought can kill the body. A thought can heal the body. If I am successful as a physician it is because I use this power with my patients. With some I use drugs, with others none. With all I use every ounce of mental power which God has given me. You will remember this?"

"Yes."

He walked to the shelves and drew down a volume of poetry.

"Read these poems until you are tired today--then sleep. I'll give you a good novel tomorrow and when you've read it, a volume of philosophy.

When we climb the peaks, I'll give you a study of these rocks that will tell you the story of their birth, their life, and their coming death.

We'll learn something of the birds and flowers next spring. We'll dream great dreams and think great thoughts--you and I--in these wonderful days and weeks and months which God shall give us together."

She looked up at him through her tears:

"Oh, Doctor, you have not only saved a miserable life: you have saved my soul!"

CHAPTER XXVI. A SOUL IS BORN

It was more than a month after the experiment began before the Doctor ventured to hint of Jim's survival. He had waited patiently until Mary's strength had been fully restored and her mind filled with the new enthusiasm for motherhood. He could tell her now with little risk. And yet he ventured on the task with reluctance. He found her seated at her favorite window overlooking the deep blue valley of the Swannanoa, a volume of poetry in her lap.

He touched her shoulder and she smiled in cheerful response.

"You are content?" he asked.

"A strange peace is slowly stealing into my heart," she responded reverently. "I shall learn to love life again when my baby comes to help me."

"You remember your solemn promise?"

"Have I not kept it?" she murmured.

"Faithfully--and I remind you of it that you may not forget today for a moment that your work is too high and holy to allow a shadow to darken your spirit even for an hour. I have something to tell you that may shock a little unless I warn you----"

She lifted her eyes with a quick look of uneasiness, and studied his immovable face.

"You couldn't guess?" he laughed.

She shook her head in puzzled silence.

"Suppose I were to tell you," he went on evenly, "that I found a spark of life in your husband's body that morning and drew him back from the grave?"

Her eyes closed and she stretched her hand toward the Doctor.

He clasped the fingers firmly between both his palms, held and stroked them gently.

"You did save him?" she breathed.

"Yes."

"Thank God his poor old mother is not a murderer! But he is dead to me.

I shall never see him again--never!"

"I thought you would feel that way," the Doctor quietly replied.

"You won't let him come here?" she asked suddenly.

"He won't try unless you consent----"

Mary shuddered.

"You don't know him----"

The Doctor smiled.

"I'm afraid you don't know him now, my child."

"He has changed?"

"The old, old miracle over again. He has been literally born again--this time of the spirit."

"It's incredible!"

"It's true. He's a new man. I think his reformation is the real thing.

He's young. He's strong. He has brains. He has personality----"

Mary lifted her hand.