O’Neil was the last man ashore.  As he walked the completed span from Pier Three the barricade of piling beneath him was bending and tearing; but he issued no orders to remove it, for the river was doing that.  In the general haste pile-drivers, hoists, boilers, and various odds and ends of machinery and material had been left where they stood.  They were being inundated now; many of them were all but submerged.  There was no possibility of saving them at present, for the men were half dead from exhaustion.

As he lurched up the muddy, uneven street to his quarters Murray felt his fatigue like a heavy burden, for he had been sixty hours without sleep.  He saw Slater and Appleton and the rest of his “boys”; he saw Natalie and Eliza, but he was too tired to speak to them, or to grasp what they said.  He heard the workmen cheering Mellen and Parker and himself.  It was very foolish, he thought, to cheer, since the river had so nearly triumphed and the final test was yet to come.

He fell upon his bed, clothed as he was; an hour later the false-work beneath Span Three collapsed.

Although the bridge was not yet finished, the most critical point of its construction had been passed, for the fourth and final portion would be built over shallow water, and no great difficulties were to be expected even though the ice went out before the work was finished.  But Murray had made his promise and his boast to complete the structure within a stated time, and he was determined to live up to the very letter of his agreement with the Trust.  As to the result of the break-up, he had no fear whatever.

For once Nature aided him:  she seemed to smile as if in approval of his steadfastness.  The movement of the channel ice became irregular, spasmodic, but it remained firm until the last span had been put in place.

Of this dramatic struggle Eliza Appleton had watched every phase with intensest interest; but when at last she knew that the battle was won she experienced a peculiar revulsion of feeling.  So long as O’Neil had been working against odds, with the prospect of ruin and failure forever imminent, she had felt an almost painful sympathy, but now that he had conquered she felt timid about congratulating him.  He was no longer to be pitied and helped; he had attained his goal and the fame he longed for.  His success would inevitably take him out of her life.  She was very sorry that he needed her no longer.

She did not watch the last bridge-member swung, but went to her room, and tried to face the future.  Spring was here, her book was finished, there was the need to take up her life again.

She was surprised when Murray came to find her.

“I missed you, Eliza,” he said.  “The others are all down at the river-bank.  I want you to congratulate me.”

She saw, with a jealous twinge, that exultation over his victory had overcome his weariness, that his face was alight with a fire she had never before seen.  He seemed young, vigorous, and masterful once more.