ns of
stars, she had never seen or imagined so many. They glittered,
glittered restlessly, in an ecstasy that caught her spirit. She too was
filled with millions of stars, through her senses they flashed and
glittered--a delirium of stars in heaven and her heart....

"My boy!"

"Yes, child."

"Do you see the stars?"

"Yes, child."

"Do you feel them?"

"Yes."

"Oh, can't we die now?"

She felt him move stiffly. "There's a ship! I'm certain of it now--I'm
certain! Oh, if it were day!"

The stars went on dazzling. She did not understand about the ship. Time
moved forward, or stood still. For her the night was timeless. It was
eternity.

But things were happening outside in time and space. By what means they
had been seen or had attracted attention she did not know. But the
floating dreamlight and the shivering starlight on the sea were broken
by a dark movement on the waveless waters. A boat was coming. For some
time there had been shouting and calling in strange voices, one of them
her boy's. But once again she hovered on the dim verge of
consciousness. She had flown from the body he was painfully unbinding
from his own. What he had suffered in holding it there so long she
never knew. From leagues away she heard him whispering, "Child, can you
help yourself a little?" And now for an instant her soul re-approached
her body, and looked at him through the soft midnight of her eyes, and
he saw in them such starlight as never was in sky or on sea.

"Kiss me," said Helen.

He kissed her.

With a great effort she lifted herself and stood upright on the raft,
swaying a little and holding by the mast. The boat was still a little
distant.

"Good-by, my boy."

"Child--!"

"Don't jump. You promised not to. You promised. But I can't come with
you now. You must let me go."

He looked at her, and saw she was in a fever. He made a desperate
clutch at her blue gown. But he was not quick enough. "Keep your
promise!" she cried, and disappeared in the dreamlit waters; she
disappeared like a dream, without a sound. As she sank, she heard him
calling her by the only name he knew....

When she was thirty-five her father died. Now she was free to go where
she pleased. But she did not go anywhere.

Ever since, as a child, she had first tasted salt water, she had longed
to travel and see other lands. What held her now? Was it that her
longing had been satisfied? that she had a host of memories of great
mountains an