eath his night-shirt. "If you don't want to wake Mr.
Matravers, will you take me up to bed, please?"

Through a mist of sudden tears, she looked down into her boy's
face. She drew a deep, quick breath--her fingers were suddenly
nerveless. There was a great dull stain on the front of her dress,
the wine-glass, shattered into many pieces, lay at her feet. She
fell on her knees, and with a little burst of passionate sobs took
him into her arms.

* * * * *

There were grey hairs in the woman's head, although she was still
quite young. A few yards ahead, the bath chair, wheeled by an
attendant, was disappearing in the shroud of white mist, which had
suddenly rolled in from the sea. But the woman lingered for a moment
with her eyes fixed upon that dim, distant line, where the twilight
fell softly upon the grey ocean. It was the single hour in the long
day which she claimed always for her own--for it seemed to her in
that mysterious stillness, when the shadows were gathering and the
winds had dropped, that she could sometimes hear his voice. Perhaps,
somewhere, he too longed for that hour--a dweller, it might be, in
that wonderful spirit world of the unknown, of which he had spoken
sometimes with a curiously grave solemnity. Her hands clasped the iron
railing, a light shone for a moment in the pale-lined face turned so
wistfully seawards!

Was it the low, sweet music of the sea, or was it indeed his voice in
her ears, languorous and soft, long-travelled yet very clear.
Somewhere at least he must know that hers had become at his bidding
the real sacrifice! A smile transfigured her face! It was for this she
had lived!

Then there came her summons. A querulous little cry reached her from
the bath chair, drawn up on the promenade. She waved her hand
cheerfully.

"I am coming," she cried; "wait for me!"

But her face was turned towards that dim, grey line of silvery light,
and the wind caught hold of her words and carried them away over the
bosom of the sea--upwards!

THE END.

E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM'S NOVELS

ILLUSTRATED. CLOTH. $1.50 EACH

_The Lost Ambassador_

A straightforward mystery story, the plot of which hinges on the sale
of two battleships.

_The Illustrious Prince_

The tale of a world-startling international intrigue.

Mr. Oppenheim is a past master of the art of constructing
ingenious plots and weaving them around at