sea of your
forgetfulness now--or never!... But keep me, keep me, if your love is
great enough, if I bring you any light or joy; for I am yours to my
uttermost note of life.'"

"He knew!--he knew!" Rawley said, catching her wrists in his hands and
drawing her to him. "If I could write, that's what I should have said to
you, beautiful and beloved. How mean and small and ugly my life was till
you made me over! I was a bad lot."

"So much hung on one little promise," she said, and drew closer to him.
"You were never bad," she added; then, with an arm sweeping the universe,
"Oh, isn't it all good, and isn't it all worth living?"

[Illustration: "OH, ISN'T IT ALL WORTH LIVING?" SHE SAID]

His face lost its glow. Over in the town her brother faced a ruined life,
and the girl beside him a dark humiliation and a shame which would poison
her life hereafter, unless--his look turned to the little house where the
quack-doctor lived. He loosed her hands.

"Now for Caliban," he said.

"I shall be Ariel and follow you--in my heart," she said. "Be sure and
make him tell you the story of his life," she added, with a laugh, as his
lips swept the hair behind her ears.

As he moved swiftly away, watching his long strides, she said, proudly,
"As deep as the sea."

After a moment she added: "And he was once a gambler, until, until"
she--glanced at the open book, then with sweet mockery looked at her
hands--"until 'those lucid, perfect hands bound me to the mast of your
destiny.' O vain Diana! But they are rather beautiful," she added, softly,
"and I am rather happy." There was something like a gay little chuckle in
her throat.

"O vain Diana!" she repeated.

* * * * *

Rawley entered the door of the hut on the hill without ceremony. There was
no need for courtesy, and the work he had come to do could be easier done
without it.

Old Busby was crouched over a table, his mouth lapping milk from a full
bowl on the table. He scarcely raised his head when Rawley
entered--through the open door he had seen his visitor coming. He sipped
on, his straggling beard dripping. There was silence for a time.

"What do you want?" he growled at last.

"Finish your swill, and then we can talk," said Rawley, carelessly. He
took a chair near the door, lighted a cheroot and smoked, watching the old
man, as he tipped the great bowl toward his face, as though it were some
wild animal feeding. The cl