mselves against his pale, steadfast face. Down on the beach below the
mad sea was thundering upon the cliffs, flinging its white spray so high
that it glittered like specks of luminous white light against the black
waters. Yet he noticed none of it. Until the brilliancy of that vision
which glowed before him faded, nothing external could withdraw his
thoughts.

And fade away it did at last, and neither the cold rain nor the howling
wind had given him such a chill as crept through all his body, when
memory and realization drove forth this sweet flower of his imagination.
All the cruel hopelessness, the horror of his position, rushed in upon
him like a foul nightmare. He saw himself shunned and despised, the
faces of all men averted from him; all that had gone to make his life
worthy, and even famous, forgotten in the stigma of an awful crime. He
saw her eager, beautiful face, white and convulsed with horror,
shrinking away from him as from some loathsome object. God! it was
madness to think of it! Let this thought go from him, fade away from his
reeling brain, or he would surely go mad.

Heedless of the fury of the winds that roared over the moorland, and
sobbed and shrieked in the pine grove, he threw himself upon his knees
close to the very verge of the cliff, and stretched out his hands to the
darkened heavens in a passionate gesture of despair. It was the first
time during all the fierce troubles of a stormy life that he had shrunk
down, beaten for the moment by the utter hopelessness of the struggle
which seemed to him now fast drawing toward its end.

"God! that I may die!" he moaned. "That I may die!"

And, as though in answer to his prayer, life for him suddenly became a
doubtful thing. A wild gust of wind had uprooted a young fir tree from
the plantation, and bearing it with a savage glee toward the cliff side,
dashed it against the kneeling man. There was no chance for him against
it. Over they went, man and tree together, to all appearance bound for
inevitable destruction.

Even in that second, when he felt himself being hurled over the cliff,
by what force he knew not, the consciousness of the sudden granting of
his prayer flashed across his mind, and, strange though it may seem,
brought with it a deep content. It was as he would have it be, death
sudden and unfelt. But following close upon it came another thought, so
swiftly works the brain in the time of a great crisis. He would be found
dead, and ever