efore, I come to tell you the end. _Bon soir,
Monsieur_."

He was gone. Again there was silence. Crossman sat rigid. What had
happened? His mind refused to understand. Then he visioned her, lying
on the white snow, scarlet under her breast, redder than her mackinaw,
redder than her woollen mittens, redder than the cardinal-flower of
her mouth--cardinal no more! "No, no!" he shrieked, springing to his
feet. His words echoed in the empty room. "No--no!--He couldn't kill
her!" He clung to the table. "No--no! No!" he screamed. Then he saw
her eyes; she was looking in through the window--yes, they were her
eyes--changing and glowing, eyes of mystery, of magic, eyes that made
the silence, eyes that called and shifted and glowed. He laughed.
Fools, fools! to think her dead! He staggered to the door and threw it
wide. Hatless, coatless, he plunged headlong into the dark--the Dark?
No! for she was there--on high, wide-flung, the banners of the Aurora
Borealis blazed and swung, banners that rippled and ran, banners of
rainbows, the souls of amethysts and emeralds, they fluttered in the
heavens, they swayed across the world, streamed like amber wine poured
from an unseen chalice, dropped fold on fold, like the fluttering
raiment of the gods.

In the north a great sapphire curtain trembled as if about to part and
reveal the unknown Beyond; it grew brighter, dazzling, radiant.

"Aurore!" he called. "Aurore!" The grip of ice clutched his heart.
Cold seized on him with unseen numbing hands. He was struggling,
struggling with his body of lead--for one step--just a step nearer the
great curtain, that now glowed warm--red--red as the ghost of her
cardinal-flower lips--pillars of light, as of the halls of heaven.
"Aurore!--Aurore!"

MR. DOWNEY SITS DOWN

By L.H. ROBBINS

From _Everybody's_

I

Jacob Downey waited in line at the meat shop. A footsore little man
was he. All day long, six days a week for twenty-two years, he had
stood on his feet, trotted on them, climbed on them, in the hardware
department of Wilbram, Prescot & Co., and still they would not
toughen; still they would hurt; still to sustain his spirit after
three o'clock he had to invoke a vision of slippers, a warm radiator,
the _Evening Bee_, and the sympathy of Mrs. Downey and the youngsters.
To the picture this evening he had added pork chops.

The woman next in line ahead of him named her meat. Said the butcher,
with a side glance at the clock, "A crow