ew her arms about him.

'I shall come to see you if you are not able to be here by nine in the
morning,' she said, and added the name of the hotel to which he was to
go.

At this establishment the doctor was well known. By midnight Reardon
lay in a comfortable room, a huge cataplasm fixed upon him, and other
needful arrangements made. A waiter had undertaken to visit him at
intervals through the night, and the man of medicine promised to return
as soon as possible after daybreak.

What sound was that, soft and continuous, remote, now clearer, now
confusedly murmuring? He must have slept, but now he lay in sudden
perfect consciousness, and that music fell upon his ears. Ah! of course
it was the rising tide; he was near the divine sea.

The night-light enabled him to discern the principal objects in the
room, and he let his eyes stray idly hither and thither. But this moment
of peacefulness was brought to an end by a fit of coughing, and he
became troubled, profoundly troubled, in mind. Was his illness really
dangerous? He tried to draw a deep breath, but could not. He found that
he could only lie on his right side with any ease. And with the effort
of turning he exhausted himself; in the course of an hour or two all
his strength had left him. Vague fears flitted harassingly through his
thoughts. If he had inflammation of the lungs--that was a disease of
which one might die, and speedily. Death? No, no, no; impossible at such
a time as this, when Amy, his own dear wife, had come back to him, and
had brought him that which would insure their happiness through all the
years of a long life.

He was still quite a young man; there must be great reserves of strength
in him. And he had the will to live, the prevailing will, the passionate
all-conquering desire of happiness.

How he had alarmed himself! Why, now he was calmer again, and again
could listen to the music of the breakers. Not all the folly and
baseness that paraded along this strip of the shore could change the
sea's eternal melody. In a day or two he would walk on the sands with
Amy, somewhere quite out of sight of the repulsive town. But Willie was
ill; he had forgotten that. Poor little boy! In future the child should
be more to him; though never what the mother was, his own love, won
again and for ever.

Again an interval of unconsciousness, brought to an end by that aching
in his side. He breathed very quickly; could not help doing so. He had
never felt