g his teasing, but too deeply moved, too generous and
sincere to play the coquette, turned to him again a face shining with
tenderness. Her eyes, like stars; her lips, all sweetness.

"Only love, James, dear--"

Something rose again in Jimmy's soft heart, choking him. As he had
thrilled to the unknown ecstasy in Agatha's song, many days before, so
now he thrilled to her voice and face, eloquent for him alone. Love
and its power, life and its meaning, the long, long thoughts of youth
and hope and desire--these held him in thrall. Agatha was in his arms.
Time was lost to him, and earth.

EPILOGUE

No one ever knew whether the accomplished Frenchman reached shore,
ultimately, in the rowboat, or descended to Sabrina beneath the waves.
If that last hasty exit from the deck of the _Sea Gull_ was also his
final exit from life, certain it is that his departure into the realm
of shades was unwept and unsung. The stick of dynamite was found,
after a gingerly search, lying on one of the berths in the large cabin,
where it had been dropped by the Frenchman in his flight.

Jimmy Hambleton did not let the shoe business entirely go to
destruction, though his taste for holidays grew markedly after he
brought his bride home with him to Lynn. One year, when the babies
were growing up, he ordered a trim little yacht to be built and put
into her berth at Charlesport. She was named the _Sea Gull_. Jimmy's
chauffeur, called Hand, was her captain.

Sometimes, when James and Agatha were alone, in the zone of stillness
that hung over the listening water, there would rise a song, clear and
birdlike:

"Free of my pain, free of my burden of sorrow,
At last I shall see thee--"

and again Jimmy's heart would rise buoyant, free, happy--the heart of
unquenchable youth.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STOLEN SINGER***

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