arkness, from sun to
storm, but the balance is always true."

Iris leaned against her, insensibly comforted.

"She would be the first to tell you not to grieve," Margaret went on,
though her voice faltered, "and still, we need sorrow as the world needs
night. We cannot always live in the sun. We can take what comes to us
bravely, as gentlewomen should, but we must take it, dear--there is no
other way."

Long afterward, Iris remembered the look on Margaret's face as she said
it, but the tears blinded her just then.

Doctor Brinkerhoff came back at twilight, anxious and worn, yet eager to
do his share. Through the night he watched with her, alert, capable, and
unselfish, putting aside his personal grief for the sake of the others.

In the last days, those two had grown very near together. When the
dreams came, he held her in his arms until the tempest passed, and
afterwards, soothed her to sleep.

"Doctor," she said one day, "I have been thinking a great deal while I
have lain here. I seem never to have had the time before. I think it is
well, at the end, to have a little space of calm, for one sees so much
more clearly."

"You have always seen clearly, dear lady," said the Doctor, very gently.

"Not always," she answered, shaking her head. "I can see many a mistake
now. The fogs have sometimes gathered thick about me, but now they have
lifted forever. We are but ships on the sea of life," she went on. "My
course has lain through calm waters, for the most part, with the skies
blue and fair above me. I have been sheltered, and I can see now that it
might have made me stronger and better to face some of the storms.
Still, my Captain knows, and now, when I can hear the breakers booming
on the reef where I am to strike my colours, I am not afraid."

The end came on Sunday, just at sunset, while the bells were tolling for
the vesper service. The crescent moon rocked idly in the west, and a
star glimmered faintly above it.

"Sunset and evening star," she repeated, softly. "And one clear call for
me. Will you say the rest of it?"

Choking, Doctor Brinkerhoff went on with the poem until he reached the
last verse, when he could speak no more.

"For though from out our bourne of time and place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to meet my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar."

She finished it, then turned to him with her face illumined. "It is
beautiful," she said, "is it not, my f