he felt alternately oppressed, thrilled. Her eyes
were star-like; but like stars behind mist. Strange! strange!

"When the man woke," he had said, "he cursed the sea for bringing him as
he thought nothing. One desire tormented him. It became intolerable. Day
after day he went down to the ocean, but the surf only leaped in
derision. For the thousandth time he cursed it, the isle to which he was
bound. Weeks passed, until, almost mad through the monotony of the long
hours, one day he inadvertently picked up a book. The brute convict
could just read. Where, how he ever learned, I forget. He began to pick
out the words. After that--"

"After that?" The girl had drawn closer; his language was plain,
matter-of-fact. The picture that he drew was without color; she,
however, saw through a medium of her own. The very landscape changed
now, remained no longer the terrible, barren environment. She seemed to
hear the singing of the birds, the softer murmur of the waves, the
purring of the stream. It was like a mask, one of those poetic
interpolations that the olden poets sometimes introduced in their
tragedies. John Steele paused. Was it over?--Almost; the coral isle
became a study; there was not much more to tell. Through the long
months, the long years, the man had fought for knowledge as he had
always fought for anything; with all his strength, passion, energy.

"Incredible! By Jove!" she heard Sir Charles' voice, awed and admiring.
"I told you, Steele, when you were about to begin, that we people of the
antipodes take a man for what he is, not for what he was. But I am glad
to have had your confidence and--and--tell me, how did you happen to
light on the law, for special study and preparation?"

"You forget that about half your superb library was law-books, Sir
Charles. A most comprehensive collection!"

"So they were! But you must have had wonderful aptitude."

"The law--the ramifications it creates for the many, the attendant
restraints for the individual--I confess interested me. You can imagine
a personal reason or--an abstract one. From the lonely perspective of a
tiny coral isle, a system, or systems,--codes of conduct, or morals,
built up for the swarming millions, so to speak!--could not but possess
fascination for one to whom those millions had become only as the
far-away shadows of a dream. You will find a few of those books, minus
fly-leaf and book-plate, it shames me to say!--still in my library,
and--"

"Bl