to down Lars Larssen."

When he left the board-room, all four Directors remained silent. They
knew that he had spoken truth. Even in defeat Lars Larssen was a bigger
man than any of the four.

* * * * *

From the first, the doctors had little hope of saving Olive. Her
constitution, never a strong one, had been undermined by the luxurious
pleasure-seeking of her life and the deadly nerve-poison of the morphia.
That night and day on the upturned boat--drenched with the waves,
chilled, famished, tortured with thirst--had been an ordeal to shatter
even a woman with big reserves of strength, and Olive had no such
reserves.

When Matheson and his father-in-law hurried back to Hull, it was to find
that life was slowly ebbing. Towards the end her mind cleared of
delirium, and she spoke rationally.

"Perhaps it is all for the best, Clifford," she murmured. "You came back
to me, but could I have held you?"

"You had come to care for me again," he answered gently.

"Yes, but I am so uncertain. It's my nature. I might have held you for a
little while ... and then."

"You must think only of getting well again," he urged.

"Don't try to buoy me up with false hopes. It is kind of you, dear; but
I see things clearly now.... You came back to me, and I am content. I
want rest now--just rest."

Presently her eyelids closed in sleep. Matheson sat watching by her
bedside for a long while, holding her hand. She stirred once and
murmured drowsily, "You came back to me." And in her sleep she passed
away so gradually that none could say when mortal life had ended and the
life eternal had begun.

EPILOGUE

In the spring of the following year, Clifford and Elaine were on their
wedding journey to Italy. He had rented a sea-coast villa on the
Ligurian Riviera, and they were travelling to there from Paris.

It was late at night when the Rome express set them down at their
destination. The sea was booming eerily against the rock-wall of the
tiny harbour of Santa Margherita, crowded with lateen-sailed fishing
craft silhouetted as a tangle of masts and ropes.

But the morning showed a cloudless sky and sunshine dancing on the blue
waters of the Gulf of Tigullio. They walked together to the tiny fishing
village of Portofino, along the most beautiful road in Italy. To the one
side the azure sea was lapping to their feet soft messages of welcome,
and to the other the olives and the pastel pines wer