rt upper lip, a full, lovely under one, and a perfectly
modeled chin. But it was the face of a woman almost mad with despair.

"Oh, Heaven! if I dare--if I dare!" she cried. She flung up her hands
with the gesture of one who has no hope; she looked over at the sea,
once more at the pier, then slowly turned away, and again quite plainly
I heard the words, "Oh, Heaven! if I dare--if I dare!"

She then walked slowly away, and I lost sight of her under the silent
arches; but I could not forget her. What a face!--what beauty, what
passion, what pain, what love and despair, what goodness and power! What
a face! When should I ever forget it?

Impelled by curiosity, I went to the railings, and I stood where she
stood. I looked down. How deep and fathomless it seemed, this running
sea! What was it she had dropped there? In my mind's eye I saw a most
pathetic little bundle made of love-letters; I pictured them tied with a
pretty faded ribbon; there would be dried flowers, each one a momento of
some happy occasion. I could fancy the dried roses, the withered
forget-me-nots, the violets, with some faint odor lingering still around
them. Then there would be a valentine, perhaps two or three; a
photograph, and probably an engagement ring. She had flung them away
into the depths of the sea, and only Heaven knows what hopes and love
she had flung with them! I could understand now what that cry meant--"If
I dare--if I dare!"

It meant that if she dare she would fling herself into the sea after
them! How many hopes had been flung, like hers, into those black depths!

Then I came to the conclusion that I was, to say the least of it, a
simpleton to waste so much time and thought about another person's
affairs.

I remember that, as I walked slowly down the pier, I met several people,
and that I felt a glow of pleasure at the thought that some people had
the good sense to prefer the Chain Pier. And then I went home.

A game at billiards, a long chat in the smoke-room, ought to have
distracted my mind from the little incident I had witnessed, but it did
not. My bed-room faced the sea, and I drew up the blind so that I might
look at it once more. The beautiful sea has many weird aspects, none
stranger than when it lies heaving sullenly under the light of the moon.
Fascinated, charmed, I stood to watch it. The moon had changed her mind;
she meant to shine now; the clouds had all vanished; the sky was dark
and blue; the stars were shining