he smugglers, led by their
great-grandfather. He would have to warn her. He couldn't shout, for
that would give everything away. He would crawl near to her first.

He finished the rum, draining the bottle to the last drop, and started
to creep along the trench, his heavy, powerless limbs carrying him only
inches where his imagination made it yards. He looked back once. The
dead man was following him. It had become a race between himself and a
corpse. He kept his eye on the light. He could see Elise quite
plainly. She was looking out towards the sea.

Feeling his muscles growing weaker, and fearful that the dead man would
overtake him, he struggled to his feet and clapped his hands to his
mouth.

'_Elise_!' he yelled. '_Elise_!'

And with the roar of surf in his ears, he sank to the ground in a
drunken stupor.

V.

The last act of _Madam Butterfly_ was ending. The cruel little
story wound to a close with the return of Pinkerton and his
sympathy-uninspiring American wife, and then the suicide of
Butterfly--the logical, but comparatively unmoving, finale to the opera.

But Elise neither saw the actors nor heard the music. With her hands
covering her eyes, she had been listening for the voice of Dick. She
could hear it, distant and faint, growing nearer, as if he were coming
towards her through a forest. There was in it a despair she had never
heard before. He was in danger--where or how she could not fathom--but
over the surging music of the orchestra she could hear the voice of
Boy-blue crying through the infinity of space.

The opera was over, and there was a storm of applause that developed
into an ovation.

'The tenor isn't really handsome, after all,' said Lady Erskin.

'I think the women of to-day are shameless,' said the rector's wife,
casting a last indignant glance at the box across the theatre.

'I feel a perfect rag,' said Lady Erskin's daughter. 'Good heavens!
Elise, what's the matter?'

'Nothing. I--I don't know,' Elise answered, looking up with
terror-stricken eyes. 'I'm just overwrought. That's all.'

'You poor dear!' said Lady Erskin. 'You shouldn't take the opera so
seriously. After all, it didn't really happen--and I have no doubt in
real life the tenor is quite a model husband, with at least ten
children.'

VI.

'Drunk,' said the company commander, stooping over the prostrate body
of Dick Durwent. 'He was all right when he took over. Where did he
get the st