loped the disease she is
going to join her mother at the settlement. Her mother was sent down
three years ago--a very bad case."

"You can't always tell from appearances," Mr. McVeigh explained. "That
man there, that big chap, who looks the pink of condition, with nothing
the matter with him, I happen to know has a perforating ulcer in his foot
and another in his shoulder-blade. Then there are others--there, see
that girl's hand, the one who is smoking the cigarette. See her twisted
fingers. That's the anaesthetic form. It attacks the nerves. You could
cut her fingers off with a dull knife, or rub them off on a
nutmeg-grater, and she would not experience the slightest sensation."

"Yes, but that fine-looking woman, there," I persisted; "surely, surely,
there can't be anything the matter with her. She is too glorious and
gorgeous altogether."

"A sad case," Mr. McVeigh answered over his shoulder, already turning
away to walk down the wharf with Kersdale.

She was a beautiful woman, and she was pure Polynesian. From my meagre
knowledge of the race and its types I could not but conclude that she had
descended from old chief stock. She could not have been more than twenty-
three or four. Her lines and proportions were magnificent, and she was
just beginning to show the amplitude of the women of her race.

"It was a blow to all of us," Dr. Georges volunteered. "She gave herself
up voluntarily, too. No one suspected. But somehow she had contracted
the disease. It broke us all up, I assure you. We've kept it out of the
papers, though. Nobody but us and her family knows what has become of
her. In fact, if you were to ask any man in Honolulu, he'd tell you it
was his impression that she was somewhere in Europe. It was at her
request that we've been so quiet about it. Poor girl, she has a lot of
pride."

"But who is she?" I asked. "Certainly, from the way you talk about her,
she must be somebody."

"Did you ever hear of Lucy Mokunui?" he asked.

"Lucy Mokunui?" I repeated, haunted by some familiar association. I
shook my head. "It seems to me I've heard the name, but I've forgotten
it."

"Never heard of Lucy Mokunui! The Hawaiian nightingale! I beg your
pardon. Of course you are a _malahini_, {1} and could not be expected to
know. Well, Lucy Mokunui was the best beloved of Honolulu--of all
Hawaii, for that matter."

"You say was," I interrupted.

"And I mean it. She is finished." He shru