he water poured roaring in with the same baffled fury; and
children played as of old on the extreme and dangerous edge of the stone
quay.

The memory of that selfsame quay roused deeper recollections in
Merefleet's mind as he sat and dined alone at the little table near the
door.

There came to him the thought, with a sudden, stabbing regret, of a
little dark-eyed sister who had hung with him over that perilous edge and
laughed at the impotent breakers below. He could hear the silvery echoes
of her laughter across half a lifetime, could feel the warm hand that
clasped his own. A magic touch swept aside the years and revealed the
old, glad days of his boyhood.

Merefleet pushed away his plate and sat with fixed eyes, fascinated by
the rosy vision. They were side by side in a fishing-smack, he and the
playmate of his childhood. There was an old fisherman in charge with
grizzled hair, whose name, he recollected without effort, was Quiller.
He was showing the little maid how to tie a knot that was warranted never
to come undone.

Merefleet watched the ardent, flushed face with a deep reverence. He had
not seen it so vividly since the day he had kissed it for the last time
and gone forth into the seething sea of life to fight the whirlpools.
Well, he had emerged triumphant so far as earthly success went. He had
breasted the tide and risen above the billows. He was wealthy, and he was
celebrated. No mortal power rose up in his path to baulk him of his
desire. Only desire itself had failed him, and ambition had become
mockery.

For twenty years he had not had time to stop and think. For twenty years
he had wrestled ceaselessly with the panting crowd. He had bartered away
the best years of his life to the gold god, and he was satiated with the
success of this transaction.

In all that time he had not mourned, as he mourned to-night, the loss of
the twin-sister who had been as his second and better self. He had not
realised till he sat alone in the place, where as a boy he had never
known solitude, how utterly flat and undesirable was the future that
stretched out like a trackless desert at his feet.

And in that moment he would have cast away the whole bulk of his great
possessions for one precious day of youth out of the many that had fled
away for ever.

A woman's laugh, high, inconsequent, rang through the great coffee-room,
and all but one looked towards the corner whence it proceeded. An
American voice began at