rom the exile.

She shivered, though the room was warm. Assuredly, she told herself, she
must keep burning before her mental vision the memory that, however much
Stuart had been the victim of a mistake at the time of their parting, he
had since forfeited all claims upon her love.

* * * * *

Stuart Farquaharson, the writer of best sellers, reflected that Life
does not divide its chapters by the measure of the calendar, nor does it
observe that rule of literary craftsmanship which seeks to distribute
the drama of a narrative into a structural unity of form with the
ascending stages of climax.

At this bruised cynicism an older man would have smiled, but to Stuart
it was poignantly real.

He had lost the prize which to him seemed the only guerdon worth
striving for, while every other recognition had come easily--almost
without effort.

The success of his novel had been so extraordinary that Farquaharson
fell to reviewing his literary experience with a somewhat impersonal
amusement. He had not poured his soul into his work with a bitter sweat
of midnight endeavor as the genius is said to do. He had wooed the muse
about as reverently as a battered tramp might fondle an equally battered
dog, seeking, without illusion, a substitute for better companionship.

One afternoon he sat alone in a Yokohama tea-house, reading the latest
collection of newspaper reviews which had come to his hand.

"We have here a book," observed one commentator, "which irritates with a
sense of undeveloped power while it delights with a too-facile charm. It
would seem to come from a pen more gifted than sincere."

As Stuart slipped the collection of clippings into his pocket a hand
fell on his shoulder and he rose to encounter a ruddy-faced young man in
the undress uniform of the United States Navy.

"Why so solitary?" demanded the newcomer. "Surely a famous novelist
needn't sit alone in the shadow of Fuji Yama. The place teems with
charming Americans."

Farquaharson's face lighted with genuine pleasure as he grasped the
outstretched hand in a grip of cramping heartiness.

"Jimmy Hancock!" he exclaimed. "Why, man, I haven't seen you since--" He
paused, and Jimmy, seating himself, grinned back as he took up the
unfinished sentence: "'Since the memory of man runneth not to the
contrary--' I'll have Scotch and soda, thank you."

Farquaharson laughed. This was the same breezy Jimmy and the two had met
rarely s