sweeter; something that
made her heart beat wildly, that seemed almost to choke her with its
ecstasy.

He loved her--had loved her all these years! He belonged to her--and
his future lay in her hands.

His future! The thought fell upon her new-found happiness with the
suddenness of a blow. She could keep him, but had she the right to do
so? She saw in him something that he did not suspect--and that
something was genius. She knew he had the ability to make for himself
a name that would stand among the great names of the earth.

Then, did his life really belong to her? Did it not rather belong to
himself and to the world?

She experienced a struggle, fierce as he himself had fought. And the
boy sat silent, tense, waiting for her answer.

Yes, she must give him up; she would be brave. She started to speak,
but the words would not come. Suddenly she buried her face in her
hands, while the glistening brown head trembled with her sobs.

It was the last drop to the cup overflowing. A second, and then, his
arms were around her. The touch was electrifying--it was oblivion--it
was heaven--it was--but only a young lover knows what.

"You have answered," said the boy. "God forgive me--but I can't go
away now."

Thus Fate sported with two lives.

THE MADNESS OF WHISTLING WINGS

CHAPTER I--SANDFORD THE EXEMPLARY

Ordinarily Sandford is sane--undeniably so. Barring the seventh, upon
any other day of the week, fifty-one weeks in the year, from nine
o'clock in the morning until six at night--omitting again a scant
half-hour at noon for lunch--he may be found in his tight little box
of an office on the fifth floor of the Exchange Building, at the
corner of Main Avenue and Thirteenth Street, where the elevated makes
its loop.

No dog chained beside his kennel is more invariably present, no caged
songster more incontestably anchored. If you need his services, you
have but to seek his address between the hours mentioned. You may do
so with the same assurance of finding him on duty that you would feel,
if you left a jug of water out of doors over night in a blizzard,
that the jug, as a jug, would be no longer of value in the morning. He
was, and is, routine impersonate, exponent of sound business
personified; a living sermon against sloth and improvidence, and easy
derelictions of the flesh.

That is to say, he is such fifty-one weeks out of the fifty-two. All
through the frigid winter season, despite the lure of