from it. It's a pity, though! Christmas night,
too!"

Not long after she had gone, I heard, through the frequent tooting of
the taxis in the street, the sound of old-fashioned waltzes being played
on the piano, and then a dull thudding noise on the floor below, mingled
with laughter, which told me that the old boarders were dancing.

I dare say my head was becoming light. I had eaten nothing for nearly
forty hours, and perhaps the great shock which chance had given me had
brought me near to the blank shadowland which is death.

I remember that in some vague way there arose before me a desire to die.
It was not to be suicide--my religion saved me from that--but death by
exhaustion, by continuing to abstain from food, having no desire for it.

Martin was gone--what was there to live for? Had I not better die before
my child came to life? And if I could go where Martin was I should be
with him eternally.

Still I did not weep, but--whether audibly or only in the unconscious
depths of my soul--more than once I cried to Martin by name.

"Martin! Martin! I am coming to you!"

I was in this mood (sitting in my chair as I had done all day and
staring into the small slow fire which was slipping to the bottom of the
grate) when I heard a soft step in the corridor outside. At the next
moment my door was opened noiselessly, and somebody stepped into the
room.

It was Mildred, and she knelt by my side and said in a low voice:

"You are in still deeper trouble, Mary--tell me."

I tried to pour out my heart to her as to a mother, but I could not do
so, and indeed there was no necessity. The thought that must have rushed
into my eyes was instantly reflected in hers.

"It is he, isn't it?" she whispered, and I could only bow my head.

"I thought so from the first," she said. "And now you are thinking of
. . . of what is to come?"

Again I could only bow, but Mildred put her arms about me and said:

"Don't lose heart, dear. Our Blessed Lady sent me to take care of you.
And I will--I will."

MEMORANDUM BY MARTIN CONRAD

Surely Chance must be the damnedest conspirator against human happiness,
or my darling could never have been allowed to suffer so much from the
report that my ship was lost.

What actually happened is easily told.

Two days after we left Akaroa, N.Z., which was the last we saw of the
world before we set our faces towards the Unknown, we ran into a heavy
lumpy sea and made bad weather of it for fort