window against which the wind and rain were beating. And through
the wet there appeared a face, shocking in its paleness and misery--the
face of Mrs. Falchion. Only for an instant, and then it was gone.

I opened the door and went out upon the verandah. As I did so, there
was a flash of lightning, and in that flash a figure hurried by me. One
moment, and there was another flash; and I saw the figure in the beating
rain, making toward the precipice.

Then I heard a cry, not loud, but full of entreaty and sorrow. I moved
quickly toward it. In another white gleam I saw Justine with her
arms about the figure, holding it back from the abyss. She said with
incredible pleading:

"No, no, madame, not that! It is wicked--wicked."

I came and stood beside them.

The figure sank upon the ground and buried a pitiful face in the wet
grass.

Justine leaned over her.

She sobbed as one whose harvest of the past is all tears. Nothing human
could comfort her yet.

I think she did not know that I was there. Justine lifted her face to
me, appealing.

I turned and stole silently away.

CHAPTER XXI. IN PORT

That night I could not rest. It was impossible to rid myself of the
picture of Mrs. Falchion as I had seen her by the precipice in the
storm. What I had dared to hope for had come. She had been awakened; and
with the awakening had risen a new understanding of her own life and
the lives of others. The storm of wind and rain that had swept down the
ravine was not wilder than her passions when I left her with Justine in
the dark night.

All had gone well where the worst might have been. Roscoe's happiness
was saved to him. He felt that the accident to him was the penalty
he paid for the error of his past; but in the crash of penalties Mrs.
Falchion, too, was suffering; and, so far as she knew, must carry with
her the remorse of having seen, without mercy, her husband sink to a
suicide's grave. I knew that she was paying a great price now for a
mistaken past. I wished that I might make her remorse and sorrow less.
There was a way, but I was not sure that all would be as I wished. Since
a certain dreadful day on the 'Fulvia', Hungerford and I had held a
secret in our hands. When it seemed that Mrs. Falchion would bring a
great trouble and shame into Roscoe's life, I determined to use the
secret. It must be used now only for Mrs. Falchion's good. As I said
in the last chapter, I had received word that somebody was comin