far corner of the couch, and lay staring at the ceiling--waiting.
Here in this dismal room, alone and facing death with a courage amazing
to behold, she made a picture which so stirred me that despite earlier
wounded feelings I went to her side. The little hands were cold and
inert when I took them, but her fingers tightened ever so gently.

"Did he say we're going down?" she quietly asked, without turning her
head.

"Yes," I answered--though both of us spoke in whispers.

"I'm sorry to have been unkind," she said, withdrawing one of her hands
and laying it on the back of my own--for Death is a great leveler of
conventions.

The pathetic resignation in her voice brought hot tears to my eyes and,
raising her fingers to my lips, I murmured:

"You're the sweetest angel I ever knew!"

For a long time we sat in the gathering darkness, holding to each other
as two little children lost in the night. Finally I heard her whisper:

"Why am I not afraid--now?"

I turned and looked down at her; down into those eyes gazing back at me
through a magnetizing moisture that drew my face nearer, nearer.

"Because," I said, "we've found something which outlives death!"

"Yes," she whispered, as her arms moved sweetly up around my neck--but
the next instant they held me off, as she gasped: "Look! Look! The end
is here!"

Quite a foot of water was swashing back and forth over the cabin floor,
while a steady stream poured down the companionway stairs. Yes, the end
was here!

"Take this," she hurriedly pressed into my hand the round brass frame
that held her picture--the frame fashioned after a porthole. "Keep
it--then come to me! Swear!"

"I swear," I gasped. "But where shall I find you? In what strange land
will you be?"

Her eyes were wide with a frightened look that even in our extremity
gave the lie to fear. Through parted, expectant lips a trembling sigh of
inexpressible sweetness seemed to carry her answer; it was brought by
the mystery of her look, by the clasp of our senses--for I know she did
not speak a word:

"I'll wait beneath the palms on one of many, many islands,
Set as emerald jewels in an ever-changing sea;
My hammock swings beside a pool of purling, crystal water
Whisp'ring to the shadows of a lonely Arcady;
The Spanish moss hangs solemn in long streamers from the cypress,
The paths are soft and noiseless with dead needles of the pine,
The nights are still and fragrant, and I'l