her mind every dark day in her life!"

"That is something, is n't it?" asked Donaldson almost pleadingly.

"Something? Something? It's everything. Don't you see now that you
can't go away?"

"I see," he answered.

"Well, then, give me your hand again. Sort of trembly, eh? But I 'll
bet you sleep better the rest of the night. And don't you on your life
let her know I told you. She 's proud as the devil. But she would
have done the same for me. They say love is blind," he laughed
excitedly, "but, Holy Smoke, this is the worst case of it I ever saw!"

Donaldson lay passive.

"Now," concluded Arsdale, "I 'll go back and see if I can sleep. Good
night."

Donaldson again lay flat on his back after Arsdale had gone. So he
lay, not sleeping, merely enduring, until, almost imperceptibly at
first, the dark about him began to dissolve. Then he rose, partly
dressed, and sitting by the open window watched the East as the dawn
stole in upon the sleeping city. It came to the attack upon the grim
alleys, the shadows around buildings, the stealthy figures, like a
royal host. A few gray outriders reconnoitred over the horizon line
and sent scurrying to their hovels those who looked up at them from
shifty eyes. Then came a vanguard in brighter colors with crimson
penants who attacked the fields and broad thoroughfares; then the
King's Own in scarlet jackets and wide sweeping banners, bronze tinted,
who charged the smaller streets and factory roofs, and finally the
brave array of all the dazzling host itself, who hurled their golden,
sun-tipped lances into every nook and cranny, awaking to life all save
those whose souls were dark within.

In watching it Donaldson found the first relief in the long night. His
own mind cleared with the dawn. The day broke so clean and fresh, so
bathed in morning dew, that once again his mind, grown perhaps less
active, clung in some last spasm to the present as when he had sat with
Elaine at breakfast, part of the little Dutch picture. Without
reasoning into the to-morrow, he felt as though this day belonged to
him. As the sun rose higher and stronger, enveloping the world in its
catholic rays, the night seemed only an evil dream. He was both
stronger and weaker. He was swept on, unresisting, by the high flood
of the new day. This world now before his eyes acknowledged nothing of
his agony but came mother-like to ease his fretting. She would have
nothing of the heavy tossing