ct of casting
himself prone. Then the picture faded once more and he railed at the
ensuing blackness as though it had been a wilful, animate thing. This
time it lasted longer, and the man's deep breath came in rasping sobs
before the scene was again revealed. Now there were two forms standing
unsteadily on the float; two forms that were almost one, for the man in
gray was holding the girl in clinging white close to him. Still, she
could stand; Smiles was alive, she was saved! And the watcher's lips
gave vent to a shout of relief and joy, a shout which ended in a groan.
All the power of his masterful will was not enough to make him do that
which he longed to--turn his tortured eyes from the picture which spelt
life to Rose, and death to all his golden dreams.

Now he saw them moving slowly up the pier, the girl still leaning
heavily against the man, and supported by his encircling arm. They
paused, and Rose half turned, and slowly waved her hand toward the sea
in a reassuring gesture, and Donald whispered, "God bless her. She knows
that I have been a witness to the whole thing, and she remembers, thinks
of me, even at ... at this time. I cannot see her face, but I know that
she is smiling."

The lingering effulgence from a final wave of light vanished; the two
forms toiling up the shore blended into the returning shadows; the
curtain of darkness fell, and the drama was ended.

"Why could it not have been I?" groaned Donald. The wind, already spent
from its brief fury, chortled softly among the shrouds as though it was
laughing at him, another mortal made the victim of capricious Fate.
Surely it knew that he would have served as well as its agent and would
only too gladly have given his very life for Smiles, but it had wilfully
sent him away and sent Opportunity to Philip.

Heroes and martyrs; what are they, after all, but the creatures of that
whimsical goddess? Most men and most women have within them the courage
to dare all things if the occasion comes, but to a few only, chosen, it
often seems, by chance, is that occasion granted. Yet, how often has the
history of life, both racial and individual, been changed by such an
event!

Donald knew his star had sunk below the far horizon and that Philip's
had been carried to its zenith. The lover was likewise the rescuer. It
were as though the play had been written and the stage set for no other
purpose than to bring the romance to its culmination, and, now that this
ha