u gotta sleep off a thing like that, or you feel
punk next day," remarked Glenn, meditatively twirling the last drops of
eau-de-vie around in his tumbler. Then he swallowed them and smacked his
lips. "She'll come around all O. K. when she sees Jack," he added.

"Goin' to let him wake her up?"

"Can you see us stoppin' him? He'd kick the pants off us----"

"Sh-h-h!" motioned Smith; "there's a automobile! By gum! It's
stopped!----"

The two muleteers set their glasses on the bar, slid to the floor, and
marched, clanking, into the covered way that led to the street. Smith
undid the bolts. A young man stood outside in the starlight.

"Well, Jack Burley, you old son of a gun!" drawled Glenn. "Gawd! You look
fit for a dead one!"

"We ain't told her!" whispered Smith. "She an' us done in a Fritz this
evening, an' it sorter turned Maryette's stomach----"

"Not that she ain't well," explained Glenn hastily; "only a girl feels
different. Stick an' me, we just took a few drinks, but Maryette, soon as
she got home, she just flopped down on her knees and asked that china
virgin of hers to go easy on that there Fritz----"

They had conducted Burley to the bar; both their arms were draped around
his shoulders; both talked to him at the same time.

"This here Fritz," began Glenn--but Burley freed himself from their
embrace.

"Where's Maryette?" he demanded.

Smith jerked a silent thumb toward the ceiling.

"In bed?"

"Or prayin'."

Burley flushed, hesitated.

"G'wan up, anyway," said Glenn. "I reckon it'll do her a heap o' good to
lamp you, you old son of a gun!"

Burley turned, went up the short flight of stairs to her closed door.
There was candle-light shining through the transom. He knocked with a
trembling hand. There was no answer. He knocked again; heard her uncertain
step; stepped back as her door opened.

The girl, a drooping figure in her night robe, stood listlessly on the
threshold. Which of the muleteers it was who had come to her door she did
not notice. She said:

"I am very tired. Death is a dreadful thing. I can't put it from my mind.
I am trying to pray----"

She lifted her weary eyes and found herself looking into the face of her
own lover. She turned very white, lovely eyes dilated.

"Is--is it thou, Djack?"

"C'est moi, ma ploo belle!"

She melted into his tightening arms with a faint cry. Very high overhead,
under the lustrous stars, an aeroplane droned its uncharted way across a
bloo