rs! The thought of it alone filled his mind, his
soul; it brushed aside, it blotted out for the time being the danger,
the peril, the deadly menace that hung over them both. It was only that
she, the Tocsin, was here--only that at last they would be together.

On she went, traversing street after street, the direction always
trending toward the river--until finally she halted before what appeared
to be, as nearly as he could make out in the almost total darkness of
the ill-lighted street, a small and tumble-down, self-contained dwelling
that bordered on what seemed to be an unfenced store yard of some
description. He drew his breath in sharply. She had halted--waiting for
him to come up with her. She was waiting for him--WAITING for him!
It seemed as though he drank of some strange, exhilarating elixir--he
reached her side eagerly--and then--and then--her hand had caught his,
and she was leading him into the house, into a black passage where he
could see nothing, into a room equally black over whose threshold he
stumbled, and her voice in a low, conscious way, with a little tremour,
a half sob in it that thrilled him with its promise, was in his ears:

"We are safe here, Jimmie, for a little while--but, oh, Jimmie, what
have I done! What have I done to bring you into this--only--only--I was
so sure, so sure, Jimmie, that there was nothing more to fear!"

The blood was beating in hammer blows at his temples. It seemed all
unreal, untrue that this moment could be his, that it was not a dream--a
dream which was presently to be snatched from him in a bitter awakening.
And then he laughed out wildly, passionately. No--it was true, it was
real! Her breath was on his cheek, it was a living, pulsing hand that
was still in his--and then soul and mind and body seemed engulfed and
lost in a mad ecstasy--and she was in his arms, crushed to him, and he
was raining kisses upon her face.

"I love you! I love you!" he was crying hoarsely; and over and over
again: "I love you! I love you!"

She did not struggle. The warm, rich lips were yielding to his; he could
feel the throb, the life in the young, lithe form against his own. She
was his--his! The years, the past, all were swept away--and she was his
at last--his for always. And there came a mighty sense of kingship
upon him, as though all the world were at his feet, and virility, and a
great, glad strength above all other men's, and a song was in his soul,
a song triumphant--for