supporting
and cheering him. They would sit for hours on one of the benches in a
little public park, she reading to him, his hand in hers, her light
touch occasionally visiting his pale brow, her still beautiful eyes
frequently lifted from the book to look into his as she made some
comment on the text, or closed the volume to beguile his mood with talk
of--what? Nobody ever overheard a conversation between these two. The
reader who has had the patience to follow their history to this point
may possibly find a pleasure in conjecture: there was probably something
to be avoided. The bearing of the man was one of profound dejection;
indeed, the unsympathetic youth of the neighborhood, with that keen
sense for visible characteristics which ever distinguishes the young
male of our species, sometimes mentioned him among themselves by the
name of Spoony Glum.

It occurred one day that John Hardshaw was possessed by the spirit of
unrest. God knows what led him whither he went, but he crossed Market
Street and held his way northward over the hills, and downward into the
region known as North Beach. Turning aimlessly to the left he followed
his toes along an unfamiliar street until he was opposite what for that
period was a rather grand dwelling, and for this is a rather shabby
factory. Casting his eyes casually upward he saw at an open window what
it had been better that he had not seen--the face and figure of Elvira
Barwell. Their eyes met. With a sharp exclamation, like the cry of a
startled bird, the lady sprang to her feet and thrust her body half out
of the window, clutching the casing on each side. Arrested by the cry,
the people in the street below looked up. Hardshaw stood motionless,
speechless, his eyes two flames. "Take care!" shouted some one in the
crowd, as the woman strained further and further forward, defying the
silent, implacable law of gravitation, as once she had defied that other
law which God thundered from Sinai. The suddenness of her movements had
tumbled a torrent of dark hair down her shoulders, and now it was blown
about her cheeks, almost concealing her face. A moment so, and then--! A
fearful cry rang through the street, as, losing her balance, she pitched
headlong from the window, a confused and whirling mass of skirts, limbs,
hair, and white face, and struck the pavement with a horrible sound and
a force of impact that was felt a hundred feet away. For a moment all
eyes refused their office and tu