m, Durwent felt for his
water-bottle and withdrew the stopper. 'Drink this,' he said, forcing
the mouth of the flask between the boy's lips. 'Take a shot of rum.
It will put the guts back into you.'

The young soldier choked with the burning liquid, and tears oozed from
his eyes, but the chill of the body passed, and with it the chill of
cowardice. With a half-whimper, half-laugh, he forced a silly, coarse
jest from his lips. 'Where did you get it, Sherwood?'

'Never mind,' said Dick. 'Come on now. Back you go--and stick it out.'

III.

The second act of _Madam Butterfly_ was in progress.

With the sure touch of high artistry, both composer and librettist had
delineated the result of Pinkerton's faithlessness--a faithlessness
that was obvious to every one but Cho-cho-san, who still believed that
her husband would return with the roses. Firm in her trust, she
pictured to Sazuki the day when he would come, 'a little speck in the
distance, climbing the hillock'--how she would wait 'a bit to tease him
and a bit so as not to die at our first meeting'--ending with the
triumphant assurance (born of her woman's intuition, which, alas!
proves so frequently unreliable) that it would all come to pass as she
told. She _knew_ it.

And so to the visit of the American consul, who tries to tell her that
her husband has written that he has tired of her--she, poor soul,
reading in his words the message that he still loves her. Then the
final tableau of the act with Butterfly, her baby and Sazuki standing
at the Shosi facing the distant harbour where his ship has just been
signalled. Softly the humming of the priests at worship ceases, and
the curtain descends on what must always remain a masterpiece of
delicate pathos--a story that will never lose its appeal while woman's
trust in man lends its charm to drab existence.

'The tenor didn't come in at all in that act,' said Lady Erskin.

'Really,' said the rector's wife, fixing her lorgnette on the opposite
box, 'that person with the leopard's skin looks absolutely like a
cannibal.'

'I'm just swimming in tears,' was the comment of Lady Erskin's daughter.

Elise said nothing; nor did she hear them speak. Her heart was
fluttering wildly, and her hands were clasped tightly together. She
had heard a far-away cry--and the voice was Dick's.

IV.

The raw air of the night, the dread of that loathsome, silent thing,
the haunting terror of the boy's eyes a few minutes