fied; and a
strange wind flowing through the trees; then silence, suspense; and the
world's dark void slowly filling with the dreadful monotone of the rain.

* * * * *

Storm after storm of agony and doubt swept her; she prayed convulsively,
at random, reiterating incoherence in blind, frightened repetition till
the stupefying sequence lost all meaning.

Exhausted, half-senseless, her hands still clung together, her
tear-swollen lips still moved to form his name, asking God's mercy on
them both. But the end had come.

[Illustration: "Then fell prone, head buried in her tumbled hair."]

Yes, the end; she knew it now--understood what had happened, what must
be. And, knowing, she heard the sea-rain whispering their judgment,
and the winds repeating it across the wastes.

She raised her head, dumb, rigid, listening, and stared through the
shaking window into obscurity. Lightning flickered along the rim of the
world--a pallid threat above the sea--the sea which had given them to
one another and left them stranded in each other's arms there on the
crumbling edges of destruction.

Her strained eyes divined, her straining senses comprehended; she
cringed lower, aghast, swaying under the menace, then fell prone, head
buried in her tumbled hair.

* * * * *

In the morning he left for the North and Portlaw's camp. Gray drove him
to the station; Cecile, in distractingly pretty negligee waved him
audacious adieu from her window.

"Shiela seems to be ill," explained Gray, as the motor car shot out into
the haze of early morning. "She asked me to say good-bye for her.... I
say, Hamil, you're looking rather ill yourself. This climate is sure to
get a white man sooner or later, if he remains too long. But the North
will put you into condition. You're going straight to Portlaw's camp on
Luckless Lake?"

"Yes," said Hamil listlessly.

"Well, we'll be in New York in a week or two. You'll surely look us up
when you're in town, won't you? And write me a line about Acton and
father--won't you?"

"Surely," nodded Hamil absently.

And they sped on, the vast distorted shadow of the car racing beside
them to the station.

CHAPTER XIX

THE LINE OF BATTLE

Portlaw's camp in the southern foot-hills of the Adirondacks was as much
a real camp as the pretentious constructions at Newport are real
cottages. A modesty, akin to smugness, designates them all with
H