te. Old Katrina had just caught sight of a man
running down the hill toward the pier. And she knew who it was,
too!

"It's Jan!" she cried. "Oh, what will he do now!"

Jan did not stop until he reached the very edge of the pier; but
there he stood--a frail and pathetic figure. He saw Glory Goldie on
the outgoing boat and greater anguish and despair than were
depicted on his face could hardly be imagined. But the sight of him
was all Katrina needed to give her the strength to defy her
daughter.

"You can go if you want to," she said. "But I shall get off at the
next landing and go home again."

"Do as you like, mother," sighed Glory Goldie wearily, perceiving
that here was something which she could not combat. And perhaps
she, too, may have felt that their treatment of the father was
outrageous.

No time was granted them for amends. Jan did not want to lose his
whole life's happiness a second time, so with a bound he leaped
from the pier into the lake.

Perhaps he intended to swim out to the boat. Or maybe he just felt
that he could not endure living any longer.

Loud shrieks went up from the pier. Instantly a boat was sent out,
and the little freight steamer lay by and put out her skiff.

But Jan sank at once and never rose to the surface. The imperial
stick and the green leather cap lay floating on the waves, but the
Emperor himself had disappeared so quietly, so beyond all tracing,
that if these souvenirs of him had not remained on top of the
water, one would hardly have believed him gone.

HELD!

It seemed extraordinary to many that Glory Goldie of Ruffluck
should have to stand at the Borg pier day after day, watching for
one who never came.

Glory Goldie did not stand there waiting on fine light summer days
either! She was on the pier in bleak and stormy November and in
dark and cold December. Nor did she have any sweet and solacing
dreams about travellers from a far country who would step ashore
here in pomp and state. She had eyes and thoughts only for a boat
that was being rowed back and forth on the lake, just beyond the
pier, dragging for the body of a drowned man.

In the beginning she had thought that the one for whom she waited
would be found immediately the dragging was begun. But such was not
the case. Day after day a couple of patient old fishermen worked
with grappling hooks and dragnets, without finding a trace of the
body.

There were said to be two deep holes at the bottom of the