me all I wanted to know.'

"'But you will breakfast with me before I take the train?' I said.

"'No; that might get you into trouble--serious trouble, if I should be
arrested. On the contrary, I must insist that you remain in this room
until I leave the building.'

"'But you perhaps need money; these disguises are expensive,' glancing at
his perfect appointment.

"'You are right. Perhaps twenty rubles--it will be enough. Give me your
address in Berlin. If I am taken, you will lose your money. If I escape,
it will be returned.'

"I shook his hand, and the door closed. A week later a man wrapped in a
cloak called at my lodgings and handed me an envelope. There was no
address and no message, only twenty rubles."

* * * * *

I looked out over the sea wrinkling below me like a great sheet of gray
satin. The huge life-boat swung above our heads, standing out in strong
relief against the sky. After a long pause,--the story had strangely
thrilled me,--I asked:--

"Pardon me, have you ever seen or heard of the countess since?"

"Never."

"Nor her brother?"

"Nor her brother."

"And the locket?"

"It is here where she placed it."

At this instant the moon rolled out from behind a cloud, and shone full on
his face. He drew out his watch-chain, touched it with his thumb-nail, and
placed the trinket in my hand. It was such as a child might wear, an
enameled thread encircling it. Through the glass I could see the tiny nest
of jet-black hair.

For some moments neither of us spoke. At last, with my heart aglow, my
whole nature profoundly stirred by the unconscious nobility of the man, I
said:--

"My friend, do you know why she bound the bracelet to your wrist?"

"No; that always puzzled me. I have often wondered."

"She bound the bracelet to your wrist, as of old a maid would have wound
her scarf about the shield of her victorious knight, as the queen would
pin the iron cross to the breast of a hero. You were the first gentleman
she had ever known in her life."

JOHN SANDERS, LABORER

[The outlines of this story were given me by my friend Augustus Thomas,
whose plays are but an index to the tenderness of his own nature.]

He came from up the railroad near the State line. Sanders was the name on
the pay-roll,--John Sanders, laborer. There was nothing remarkable about
him. He was like a hundred others up and down the track. If you paid him
off on Saturday night you would