and callings on God to witness that the girl had performed a miracle,
the haciendado gave them food and cooling drinks, and with gentle
insistence, had his servants, wife and daughters show them to their
rooms. A poultice of Mexican herbs was laid across Philip's eyes, but
exhausted as he was he could not sleep because of the pain they caused
him.
In the morning, Gloria was almost her usual self, but Philip could see
but faintly. As early as was possible they started for Fort Magruder.
His eyes were bandaged, and Gloria held the bridle of his horse and led
him along the dusty trail. A vaquero from the ranch went with them to
show the way.
Then came days of anxiety, for the surgeon at the Post saw serious
trouble ahead for Philip. He would make no definite statement, but
admitted that the brilliant young officer's eyesight was seriously
menaced.
Gloria read to him and wrote for him, and in many ways was his hands and
eyes. He in turn talked to her of the things that filled his mind. The
betterment of man was an ever-present theme with them. It pleased him to
trace for her the world's history from its early beginning when all was
misty tradition, down through the uncertain centuries of early
civilization to the present time.
He talked with her of the untrustworthiness of the so-called history of
to-day, although we had every facility for recording facts, and he
pointed out how utterly unreliable it was when tradition was the only
means of transmission. Mediocrity, he felt sure, had oftentimes been
exalted into genius, and brilliant and patriotic exclamations attributed
to great men, were never uttered by them, neither was it easy he
thought, to get a true historic picture of the human intellectual giant.
As a rule they were quite human, but people insisted upon idealizing
them, consequently they became not themselves but what the popular mind
wanted them to be.
He also dwelt on the part the demagogue and the incompetents play in
retarding the advancement of the human race. Some leaders were honest,
some were wise and some were selfish, but it was seldom that the people
would be led by wise, honest and unselfish men.
"There is always the demagogue to poison the mind of the people against
such a man," he said, "and it is easily done because wisdom means
moderation and honesty means truth. To be moderate and to tell the truth
at all times and about all matters seldom pleases the masses."
Many a long day was spent thus in purely impersonal discussions of
affairs, and though he himself did not realize it, Gloria saw that
Philip was ever at his best when viewing the large questions of State,
rather than the narrower ones within the scope of the military power.
The weeks passed swiftly, for the girl knew well how to ease the young
Officer's chafing at uncertainty and inaction. At times, as they droned
away the long hot summer afternoons under the heavily leafed fig trees
in the little garden of the Strawn bungalow, he would become impatient
at his enforced idleness. Finally one day, after making a pitiful
attempt to read, Philip broke out, "I have been patient under this as
long as I can. The restraint is too much. Something must be done."
Somewhat to his surprise, Gloria did not try to take his mind off the
situation this time, but suggested asking the surgeon for a definite
report on his condition.
The interview with the surgeon was unsatisfactory, but his report to his
superior officers bore fruit, for in a short time Philip was told that
he should apply for an indefinite leave of absence, as it would be
months, perhaps years, before his eyes would allow him to carry on his
duties.
He seemed dazed at the news, and for a long time would not talk of it
even with Gloria. After a long silence one afternoon she softly asked,
"What are you going to do, Philip?"
Jack Strawn, who was sitting near by, broke out--"Do! why there's no
question about what he is going to do. Once an Army man always an Army
man. He's going to live on the best the U.S.A. provides until his eyes
are right. In the meantime Philip is going to take indefinite sick
leave."
The girl only smiled at her brother's military point of view, and asked
another question. "How will you occupy your time, Philip?"
Philip sat as if he had not heard them.
"Occupy his time!" exclaimed Jack, "getting well of course. Without
having to obey orders or do anything but draw his checks, he can have
the time of his life, there will be nothing to worry about."
"That's just it," slowly said Philip. "No work, nothing to think about."
"Exactly," said Gloria.
"What are you driving at, Sister. You talk as if it was something to be
deplored. I call it a lark. Cheer the fellow up a bit, can't you?"
"No, never mind," replied Philip. "There's nothing to cheer me up about.
The question is simply this: Can I stand a period of several years'
enforced inactivity as a mere pensioner?"
"Yes!" quickly said Gloria, "as a pensioner, and then, if all goes well,
you return to this." "What do you mean, Gloria? Don't you like Army Post
life?" asked Jack.
"I like it as well as you do, Jack. You just haven't come to realize
that Philip is cut out for a bigger sphere than--that." She pointed out
across the parade ground where a drill was going on. "You know as well
as I do that this is not the age for a military career."
Jack was so disgusted with this, that with an exclamation of impatience,
he abruptly strode off to the parade ground.
"You are right, Gloria," said Philip. "I cannot live on a pension
indefinitely. I cannot bring myself to believe that it is honest to
become a mendicant upon the bounty of the country. If I had been injured
in the performance of duty, I would have no scruples in accepting
support during an enforced idleness, but this disability arose from no
fault of the Government, and the thought of accepting aid under such
circumstances is too repugnant."
"Of course," said Gloria.
"The Government means no more to me than an individual," continued
Philip, "and it is to be as fairly dealt with. I never could understand
how men with self-respect could accept undeserving pensions from the
Nation. To do so is not alone dishonest, but is unfair to those who need
help and have a righteous claim to support. If the unworthy were
refused, the deserving would be able to obtain that to which they are
entitled."
Their talk went on thus for hours, the girl ever trying more
particularly to make him see a military career as she did, and he more
concerned with the ethical side of the situation.
"Do not worry over it, Philip," cried Gloria, "I feel sure that your
place is in the larger world of affairs, and you will some day be glad
that this misfortune came to you, and that you were forced to go into
another field of endeavor.
"With my ignorance and idle curiosity, I led you on and on, over first
one hill and then another, until you lost your way in that awful desert
over there, but yet perhaps there was a destiny in that. When I was
leading you out of the desert, a blind man, it may be that I was leading
you out of the barrenness of military life, into the fruitful field of
labor for humanity."
After a long silence, Philip Dru arose and took Gloria's hand.
"Yes! I will resign. You have already reconciled me to my fate."
CHAPTER IV
THE SUPREMACY OF MIND
Officers and friends urged Philip to reconsider his determination of
resigning, but once decided, he could not be swerved from his purpose.
Gloria persuaded him to go to New York with her in order to consult one
of the leading oculists, and arrangements were made immediately. On the
last day but one, as they sat under their favorite fig tree, they talked
much of Philip's future. Gloria had also been reading aloud Sir Oliver
Lodge's "Science and Immortality," and closing the book upon the final
chapter, asked Philip what he thought of it.
"Although the book was written many years ago, even then the truth had
begun to dawn upon the poets, seers and scientific dreamers. The
dominion of mind, but faintly seen at that time, but more clearly now,
will finally come into full vision. The materialists under the
leadership of Darwin, Huxley and Wallace, went far in the right
direction, but in trying to go to the very fountainhead of life, they
came to a door which they could not open and which no materialistic key
will ever open."
"So, Mr. Preacher, you're at it again," laughed Gloria. "You belong to
the pulpit of real life, not the Army. Go on, I am interested."
"Well," went on Dru, "then came a reaction, and the best thought of the
scientific world swung back to the theory of mind or spirit, and the
truth began to unfold itself. Now, man is at last about to enter into
that splendid kingdom, the promise of which Christ gave us when he said,
'My Father and I are one,' and again, 'When you have seen me you have
seen the Father.' He was but telling them that all life was a part of
the One Life--individualized, but yet of and a part of the whole.
"We are just learning our power and dominion over ourselves. When in the
future children are trained from infancy that they can measurably
conquer their troubles by the force of mind, a new era will have come
to man."
"There," said Gloria, with an earnestness that Philip had rarely heard
in her, "is perhaps the source of the true redemption of the world."
She checked herself quickly, "But you were preaching to me, not I to
you. Go on."
"No, but I want to hear what you were going to say."
"You see I am greatly interested in this movement which is seeking to
find how far mind controls matter, and to what extent our lives are
spiritual rather than material," she answered, "but it's hard to talk
about it to most people, so I have kept it to myself. Go on, Philip, I
will not interrupt again."
"When fear, hate, greed and the purely material conception of Life
passes out," said Philip, "as it some day may, and only wholesome
thoughts will have a place in human minds, mental ills will take flight
along with most of our bodily ills, and the miracle of the world's
redemption will have been largely wrought."
"Mental ills will take flight along with bodily ills. We should be
trained, too, not to dwell upon anticipated troubles, but to use our
minds and bodies in an earnest, honest endeavor to avert threatened
disaster. We should not brood over possible failure, for in the great
realm of the supremacy of mind or spirit the thought of failure should
not enter."
"Yes, I know, Philip."
"Fear, causes perhaps more unhappiness than any one thing that we have
let take possession of us. Some are never free from it. They awake in
the morning with a vague, indefinite sense of it, and at night a
foreboding of disaster hands over the to-morrow. Life would have for us
a different meaning if we would resolve, and keep the resolution, to do
the best we could under all conditions, and never fear the result. Then,
too, we should be trained not to have such an unreasonable fear of
death. The Eastern peoples are far wiser in this respect than we. They
have learned to look upon death as a happy transition to something
better. And they are right, for that is the true philosophy of it. At
the very worst, can it mean more than a long and dreamless sleep? Does
not the soul either go back to the one source from which it sprung, and
become a part of the whole, or does it not throw off its material
environment and continue with individual consciousness to work out its
final destiny?
"If that be true, there is no death as we have conceived it. It would
mean to us merely the beginning of a more splendid day, and we should be
taught that every emotion, every effort here that is unselfish and soul
uplifting, will better fit us for that spiritual existence that is to
come."
CHAPTER V
THE TRAGEDY OF THE TURNERS
The trip north from Fort Magruder was a most trying experience for
Philip Dru, for although he had as traveling companions Gloria and Jack
Strawn, who was taking a leave of absence, the young Kentuckian felt his
departure from Texas and the Army as a portentous turning point in his
career. In spite of Gloria's philosophy, and in spite of Jack's
reassurances, Philip was assailed by doubts as to the ultimate
improvement of his eyesight, and at the same time with the feeling that
perhaps after all, he was playing the part of a deserter.
"It's all nonsense to feel cut up over it, you know, Philip," insisted
Jack. "You can take my word for it that you have the wrong idea in
wanting to quit when you can be taken care of by the Government. You
have every right to it."
"No, Jack, I have no right to it," answered Dru, "but certain as I am
that I am doing the only thing I could do, under the circumstances, it's
a hard wrench to leave the Army, even though I had come to think that I
can find my place in the world out of the service."
The depression was not shaken off until after they had reached New York,
and Philip had been told by the great specialist that his eyesight
probably never again would pass the Army tests. Once convinced that an
Army career was impossible, he resigned, and began to reconstruct his
life with new hope and with a new enthusiasm. While he was ordered to
give his eyes complete rest for at least six months and remain a part
of every day in a darkened room, he was promised that after several
months, he probably would be able to read and write a little.
As he had no relatives in New York, Philip, after some hesitation,
