on to so many fatal
experiments in the pursuit of happiness. The great goal, the real
meaning of our miserable balked mortal existence is not that dancing
will-o'-the-wisp we call happiness, for want of a better name. It is
Death."

"Well?" Isabel's voice rose, but she kept the anxiety out of it.

"I cannot imagine anything more delicious," went on Victoria, in the
same low rich tones, "than to walk straight down those hills and into
that sea of flame. I have always admired Empedocles, who cast himself
into Etna. Once I saw a friend cremated, and the brief vision of that
white incandescence, before the coffin shot down, seemed to me the
apotheosis, the voluptuous poetry of death. I could walk down into that
colossal furnace without flinching, and I believe that my last moment,
as the world disappeared behind me, and those superb flames took me into
their embrace, would be one of sublimest ecstasy."

Isabel caught her by the shoulders and whirled her about. "Well, you
will do nothing of the sort," she cried, roughly. "In the first place you
couldn't get through the lines, and in the second you are wanted at Fort
Mason. Anne is going down with a basket of linen for the poor women who
will be confined to-night. You are an uncommonly strong woman, and you
can make use of every bit of your strength. Anne and the Leader are
frail creatures, and no one else that I know of is going. They need you,
and you will soon have your hands so full that your head will be purged
of this nonsense. It is the fire lust--the same lust that incited a boy
to-day to attempt to set fire to a house in this district that he might
watch the whole city burn. I hope your egoism exploded in that climax.
Here comes Anne. You must go."

"Very well," said Victoria, suddenly dazed, and with a will relaxed
after the long tension of the day. "I will go."

"Where are your jewels?"

"Down in the bank."

"Well, gather up any other small things you treasure, and either conceal
them about you or give them to me."

"I shall not take anything. My laces are in the chiffonniere. I do not
care to enter the house again."

Isabel fetched her hat and jacket, for in spite of the fire it would be
cold near the water; and a few moments later she stood on the edge of
Green and Jones streets, on the other side of the hill, and watched
Victoria and Anne, carrying a large clothes-basket between them,
carefully making their way down to the level. They had a walk of so