aps who drank from
it most eagerly. Her life with Everett, from the day when she had risen
from a bed of sickness stripped of all her beauty, had been one bitter
wrong. She drank with the wild hope that the thing might possibly be
not a dream; and thrilled to the touch of the man she loved, as reaching
across the table he took the glass from her hand. Mrs. Armitage was the
fourth to drink. She took the cup from her husband, drank with a quiet
smile, and passed it on to Camelford. And Camelford drank, looking at
nobody, and replaced the glass upon the table.

"Come," said the little old gentleman to Mrs. Camelford, "you are the
only one left. The whole thing will be incomplete without you."

"I have no wish to drink," said Mrs. Camelford, and her eyes sought
those of her husband, but he would not look at her.

"Come," again urged the Figure. And then Camelford looked at her and
laughed drily.

"You had better drink," he said. "It's only a dream."

"If you wish it," she answered. And it was from his hands she took the
glass.

*****

It is from the narrative as Armitage told it to me that night in the
Club smoking-room that I am taking most of my material. It seemed to him
that all things began slowly to rise upward, leaving him stationary, but
with a great pain as though the inside of him were being torn away--the
same sensation greatly exaggerated, so he likened it, as descending in
a lift. But around him all the time was silence and darkness unrelieved.
After a period that might have been minutes, that might have been years,
a faint light crept towards him. It grew stronger, and into the air
which now fanned his cheek there stole the sound of far-off music. The
light and the music both increased, and one by one his senses came back
to him. He was seated on a low cushioned bench beneath a group of palms.
A young girl was sitting beside him, but her face was turned away from
him.

"I did not catch your name," he was saying. "Would you mind telling it
to me?"

She turned her face towards him. It was the most spiritually beautiful
face he had ever seen. "I am in the same predicament," she laughed. "You
had better write yours on my programme, and I will write mine on yours."

So they wrote upon each other's programme and exchanged again. The name
she had written was Alice Blatchley.

He had never seen her before, that he could remember. Yet at the back of
his mind there dwelt the haunting knowledge of her. Some