vening that he must pass alone? And she did not care for
him. Condy at last knew this to be so. Even the poor solace of
knowing that she, too, was unhappy was denied him. She had never loved
him, and never would. He was a chum to her, nothing more. Condy was
too clear-headed to deceive himself upon this point. The time was come
for her to go away, and she had given him no sign, no cue.

The last days passed; Blix's trunk was packed, her half section
engaged, her ticket bought. They said good-by to the old places they
had come to know so well--Chinatown, the Golden Balcony, the
water-front, the lake of San Andreas, Telegraph Hill, and Luna's--and
had bade farewell to Riccardo and to old Richardson. They had left K.
D. B. and Captain Jack until the last day. Blix was to go on the
second of January. On New Year's Day she and Condy were to take their
last walk, were to go out to the lifeboat station, and then on around
the shore to the little amphitheatre of blackberry bushes--where they
had promised always to write one another on the anniversary of their
first visit--and then for the last time climb the hill, and go across
the breezy downs to the city.

Then came the last day of the old year, the last day but one that they
would be together. They spent it in a long ramble along the
water-front, following the line of the shipping even as far as Meiggs's
Wharf. They had come back to the flat for supper, and afterward, as
soon as the family had left them alone, had settled themselves in the
bay window to watch the New Year in.

The little dining-room was dark, but for the indistinct blur of light
that came in through the window--a light that was a mingling of the
afterglow, the new-risen moon, and the faint haze that the city threw
off into the sky from its street lamps and electrics. From where they
sat they could look down, almost as from a tower, into the city's
streets. Here a corner came into view; further on a great puff of
green foliage--palms and pines side by side--overlooked a wall. Here a
street was visible for almost its entire length, like a stream of
asphalt flowing down the pitch of the hill, dammed on either side by
rows upon rows of houses; while further on the vague confusion of roofs
and facades opened out around a patch of green lawn, the garden of some
larger residence.

As they looked and watched, the afterglow caught window after window,
till all that quarter of the city seemed to sta