ing incredulous and something
sorrowful; a look of great and selfless tenderness. The face of Naida
was lighted up, and her big eyes filled with tears. Disengaging one of
her jewelled hands, she ruffled Nicol Brinn's hair.

"My Nicol," she said, tenderly. "Have I changed so much?"

Her accent was quaint and fascinating, but her voice was very musical.
To the man who knelt at her feet it was the sweetest music in the world.

"Naida," he whispered. "Naida. Even yet I dare not believe that you are
here."

"You knew I would come?"

"How was I to know that you would see my message?"

She opened her closed left hand and smoothed out a scrap of torn paper
which she held there. It was from the "Agony" column of that day's
Times.

N. November 23, 1913. N. B. See Telephone Directory.

"I told you long, long ago that I would come if ever you wanted me."

"Long, long ago," echoed Nicol Brinn. "To me it has seemed a century;
to-night it seems a day."

He watched her with a deep and tireless content. Presently her eyes
fell. "Sit here beside me," she said. "I have not long to be here. Put
your arms round me. I have something to tell you."

He seated himself beside her on the settee, and held her close. "My
Naida!" he breathed softly.

"Ah, no, no!" she entreated. "Do you want to break my heart?"

He suddenly released her, clenched his big hands, and stared down at the
carpet. "You have broken mine."

Impulsively Naida threw her arms around his neck, coiling herself up
lithely and characteristically beside him.

"My big sweetheart," she whispered, crooningly. "Don't say it--don't say
it."

"I have said it. It is true."

Turning, fiercely he seized her. "I won't let you go!" he cried, and
there was a strange light in his eyes. "Before I was helpless, now I am
not. This time you have come to me, and you shall stay."

She shrank away from him terrified, wild-eyed. "Oh, you forget, you
forget!"

"For seven years I have tried to forget. I have been mad, but to-night I
am sane."

"I trusted you, I trusted you!" she moaned.

Nicol Brinn clenched his teeth grimly for a moment, and then, holding
her averted face very close to his own, he began to speak in a low,
monotonous voice. "For seven years," he said, "I have tried to die,
because without you I did not care to live. I have gone into the bad
lands of the world and into the worst spots of those bad lands. Night
and day your eyes have watched me, and I have waken