and how
sympathetic! You have such feeling for everybody in trouble."

This was too much for even Flint's sense of humor, which had suffered
somewhat, as every one's does, from the process of falling in love.
His lips twitched.

"Then I am not more obtuse than any one you ever saw, when the
sufferings of others are involved?"

"Don't, pray, don't bring up the things I said that night!" cried
Winifred, blushing rosy red.

"This is no time for jesting, dear, I know," Flint answered, coming
close to her as she stood against the filmy lace curtain. "No time
either for jesting or hoping; only your words did give me a gleam of
encouragement to think that perhaps a girl who changed her mind so
much in a few weeks might have wavered a little in a few days. Is it
possible--Winifred, before I go away, as I must at once--could you
find it in your heart to say 'I love you'?"

Winifred made him no answer, at least in words; but she came close to
him, and laid both hands on his arm with a touching gesture of
trustful affection.

So absorbed were they in one another that they did not notice how near
they stood to the window, or that the curtain was too diaphanous quite
to conceal them from view. Suddenly into their world of ecstatic
oblivion came a crash, a sound of falling glass, a dull thud against
the wall opposite to the window.

"Great Heavens!" cried Flint, looking anxiously at Winifred. "What was
that? Are you sure you're not hurt, my darling?"

Even as he spoke, another report was heard outside, and, throwing open
the curtains, they saw a man on the other side of the street stagger
and fall. Flint rushed to the door, down the steps and across the
sidewalk. A crowd had already collected.

"He is dead,--stone dead," said one, kneeling with his hand over his
heart.

"Queer, isn't it--on Thanksgiving Day too?" said another.

"Who is he?--a countryman by his looks," said a third. "Fine-looking
chap, too, with that crop of curly hair and these broad shoulders."

"Faith!" murmured an old woman, "it's some mother's heart 'ull bleed
this day." And pulling out her beads, she knelt on the sidewalk to say
a prayer over the parting soul.

The prostrate form lying along the pavement had a certain tragic
dignity, almost majesty, in its attitude. One arm was pressed to the
heart, the other thrown out in a gesture of abandonment to despair.
The revolver, which had dropped from the nerveless hand, lay still
smoking beside the