gray fog, and Rowland found
sanity to mutter, "They've drugged me"; but in an instant he stood in
the darkness of a garden--one that he had known. In the distance were
the lights of a house, and close to him was a young girl, who turned
from him and fled, even as he called to her.

By a supreme effort of will, he brought himself back to the present, to
the bridge he stood upon, and to his duty. "Why must it haunt me through
the years?" he groaned; "drunk then--drunk since. She could have saved
me, but she chose to damn me." He strove to pace up and down, but
staggered, and clung to the rail; while the three watchers approached
again, and the little white figure below climbed the upper bridge steps.

"The survival of the fittest," he rambled, as he stared into the fog;
"cause and effect. It explains the Universe--and me." He lifted his hand
and spoke loudly, as though to some unseen familiar of the deep. "What
will be the last effect? Where in the scheme of ultimate balance--under
the law of the correlation of energy, will my wasted wealth of love be
gathered, and weighed, and credited? What will balance it, and where
will I be? Myra,--Myra," he called; "do you know what you have lost? Do
you know, in your goodness, and purity, and truth, of what you have
done? Do you know--"

The fabric on which he stood was gone, and he seemed to be poised on
nothing in a worldless universe of gray--alone. And in the vast,
limitless emptiness there was no sound, or life, or change; and in his
heart neither fear, nor wonder, nor emotion of any kind, save one--the
unspeakable hunger of a love that had failed. Yet it seemed that he was
not John Rowland, but some one, or something else; for presently he saw
himself, far away--millions of billions of miles; as though on the
outermost fringes of the void--and heard his own voice, calling.
Faintly, yet distinctly, filled with the concentrated despair of his
life, came the call: "Myra,--Myra."

There was an answering call, and looking for the second voice, he beheld
her--the woman of his love--on the opposite edge of space; and her eyes
held the tenderness, and her voice held the pleading that he had known
but in dreams. "Come back," she called; "come back to me." But it seemed
that the two could not understand; for again he heard the despairing
cry: "Myra, Myra, where are you?" and again the answer: "Come back.
Come."

Then in the far distance to the right appeared a faint point of flam