unable to help herself, but still afloat and the boy that left here six weeks back still walking her battered hulk."

The master of the Midnight glanced down toward Murray's vessel. From there his eyes roved toward the little old house perched high up on the rocks, and back then to Murray's vessel, where now old Kippen could be seen shoving off his boat. The old man made but feeble progress, and the tide set him over toward the Midnight. Clearly he was very tired, but when he called out to Captain Butler there was a more hopeful ring to his words: "Captain

Murray says 'tis possible the Pallas was drove clear back through the gulf to the Labrador coast, drove ashore like, and they might be there now, he says. Hard livin' on that coast, captain, in winter."

"It must be."

"Aye, but they has their herrin', and what fresh fish they can ketch. Simon will make out."

"I hope so, Mister Kippen."

The old man rowed on to the beach, where, after drawing his boat above hightide mark, he laboriously made the ascent of the rocks. Now they could see him, and

again he would disappear beyond some intervening shack in the winding path. Neighbors were evidently hailing him on the way, for here and there he would halt and, half turning, nod his head, say a few words, of further hope doubtless, and pass along. Twice he paused, apparently for breath.

Arrived at his house he did not at once enter, but turned and gazed out over the bay. He stood so until the door opened and his old wife appeared; and together they stood on the flat rock that served for a doorstep and gazed over the water. It gave one a shiver to see their old gray heads bared to the cold winter air.

Not until the old woman clutched him by the arm did he turn his face from the sea, and even then he returned to it, sweeping his thin arm toward the north-west with hopeful emphasis. She bent her head to his ear then, and evidently asked a disturbing question, for he dropped his arm and shook his head, whereat, stepping heavily, she went within the door. The old man lingered for one more long look across the bay and out toward the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Then he, too, went within.

The master of the Midnight sighed heavily. "Isn't that tough? The old woman hasn't his faith, you see. But he'll go on

hoping and praying, and none of us with courage to tell him. Maybe 'twould 've been better to tell him."

As he spoke a neighbor was seen to stop at the door of the house on the hill and knock. The old man came to the door. The neighbor handed him a newspaper and was about to make off, but the old man called after him. The neighbor opened up the paper, pointed hurriedly to something in it and rushed away. The old man gazed after him and then at the paper, before he closed the door. "He can't read," commented the master of the Midnight, "but his wife can. God! she'll get it first and have to tell himwhat we might have told him before!"

In perhaps an hour the door of the little shack reopened. It was the old woman who came out. With some effort, for the wind was high, she closed all the shutters, and without further look around, stepped within the door again.

Presently another woman, a younger woman this, was seen to climb the winding path and stop at the door. The master of the Midnight unconsciously bent over the rail. "See now-the poor girl!"

After some hesitation the young woman knocked. Again she knocked. And yet once more. No answer coming, she rapped

on one of the closed shutters, and still receiving no response, she stood on her toes in an effort to peek through the diamond opening. She was not tall enough for that, and, stepping back, again she essayed the door. She rattled the latch; but no word.

Throwing back her head, she stared anew at the blank walls; but nothing coming of

that, she made a despairing gesture with her hands, resettled her shawl about her shoulders, and came away. Neighbors, from behind jarred doors, peered out on her, but none spoke to her; and so still was it that from the deck of the Midnight they could hear her heels clicking as she hurried down the rocky pathway.

T

I

THE MACHINE

HE girl slipped into the shadow of a tree just beyond the crowd and listened, smiling appreciatively as she thought how disconcerted "the eloquent young candidate" would be to know that she was there. He was emitting burning words about the wickedness of the corporations, and her father was president or director of a score of the most conspicuous.

The speaker's efforts to convince the people that he was one of them, despite wellknown handicaps of birth and inheritance, appealed to her as too delicious to keep to herself. The money enabling him to fight corporate wealth happened to have been inherited from a corporation. But the anticipated relish of mimicking him at home burned out in a blush as she suddenly realized that this would involve acknowledging that she had taken the trouble to go and hear him—a thing she did not care to proclaim. Perhaps the blush showed the real reason for this secret expedition.

Abstractly he was absurd, as represented by the papers (controlled by her father), but concretely he looked very nice as he stood up there with the flaring light overhead casting deep, interesting shadows upon his clean-cut face while he forgot himself in the vehemence with which he swayed the silent crowd before him.

Davidge, unaware of Miss Hallowell's proximity, presently caught a glimpse of the familiar figure of the Hallowells' butler,

he being her escort, and his figure being of a sort inconvenient to hide in the shadow of middle-aged trees-hardly an æsthetic sight, but the orator sweeping grandly on to his peroration experienced the usual leap of the heart occasioned by the presence of anybody or anything even remotely associated with her. Subconsciously he kept wondering what the deuce old Gray might be doing in this remote edge of a dirty town miles away from the Hallowells' place at an hour usually claimed by the Hallowells' dinner.

As a lover, Davidge was grimly grateful that even this member of the household cared to come and hear him talk. As a politician he reminded himself that a servant's opinion counts as much as his master's at the polls-more, incidentally, than his mistress's-and resolved to seek out Gray at the conclusion of the speech to thank him for his interest.

So the girl behind the tree was caught.

"Nell!" he exclaimed with a burst of delight; "how sweet of you!" The vote was forgotten; he had her hand in his, he was making obeisance over it. The crowd was still cheering his name; he did not hear it.

"Oh, you needn't think it was because I admire you," she said, smiling easily. She withdrew her hand and retreated a little from him.

"I don't,” he said in a lower tone; “but you came!" His voice was vibrant from speaking, his eye flashing, his atmosphere dominant.

"Oh," said the girl in an indolent manner, "I was just passing by this way." "But you stopped!"

"I couldn't get through this crowd of

yours with the machine. had your experience in getting around the 'peopul,' Tom."

He laughed applaudingly at that. "You could have gone around the block, you know-if you'd wanted to." He drove his gaze down into her eyes, which fluttered like cowards and sought the shadow.

"Not with a broken-down machine," she returned glibly. "I had to put in the time somehow. You're not much of a speaker; are you?"

He paid no attention to the last. "Broken down?" he asked, a sudden plan coming into the back of his head. Politicians learn to see opportunities quickly.

"It's all right now."

"Oh!" he sighed, disappointed. Then looking sceptically at the fat, incompetent house servant, "Who fixed it?" he asked.

He kept demolishing her defences. Safety lay in flight. "Perhaps you'll be convinced that it's fixed if you'll take the trouble to get it for me," she answered. "I'm late enough as it is." He kept on gazing quizzically at Gray as she pointed down the dark sidestreet where the automobile stood. "But it would take him forever," she whispered, smiling, "to get through this crowd of yours.'

"That's what I was counting on, Nell," he muttered and started off in the direction she pointed, adding, "I suppose you saw that."

She did see it; she felt it, too; her breast was thumping with it-another reason for her panicky desire to be rid of him.

She watched him as the crowd parted before him, some of them turning to point him out, to gaze after the hero, as he brushed by, ignoring their adulation. She had come here to be amused. . . . So she smiled satirically.

As usual after one of his moments Davidge had felt the jubilant glow that comes of masterly self-assertion, a delicious form of intoxication known to a few preachers, some actors, and to "born" orators. But the momentary sense of invincibility now only made him rebel the more at being thwarted in the thing he desired beyond all the public power the world could offer. The natural man within him raged, and he had to battle with a suffusing impulse to rush back, snatch her up in his arms, and VOL. XL.-31

the earth, there to fight and keep her for his own to the end of time.

Presently the civilized man returned to the lady and her servant in a snorting fortyhorse-power touring car.

"That's not my machine," she remarked, annoyed.

"It's mine," he said, jumping out beside her; "but I'll let you go home in it," he added with bantering condescension, and then stretched out an assisting hand deferentially.

The girl turned away with a manner calculated to freeze him. "Gray, will you be good enough to get my runabout?"

"Yes, Gray, get Miss Hallowell's runabout," put in Davidge," and have it hauled to that garage half a mile down Main Street. I've telephoned them to expect it."

The girl turned in amazement. "Whoever fixed your car," he said calmly, "bungled the job pretty badly; the vibration screws are gone."

"The vibration screws!"

"What did you think was the trouble?" There had been no trouble, but she could not confess it now. She stood looking down the side-street, trapped, irritated, but considerably interested.

"Hurry, please," he said in a matter-offact manner; "I have another speech to make this evening." He touched her elbow gently. She bristled. He should have remembered how she always disliked being seized by the elbow.

"I do not care to go with you," she said.

"I know, but I'm afraid there's no way out of it, now," he replied with elaborate sympathy. "Gray has gone to hunt up a horse. Hurry, Nell, I'm due in Carusey in forty-five minutes.”

"I'm not going with you, Tom!" "Oh, yes you are!"

She felt that he was willing her toward the step. "It will be thirty miles around by your place," he whispered; "but I'll risk it-to please you."

She drew back abruptly. "Thanks," she said with sarcastic distinctness; "I'd hate to make you late!"

"Think how that would please your father," he returned. "Come, Nell, it's to be the speech of my life!"

"I'm not interested in your silly career."