linding light. He pressed his fingers on his eyeballs; every fibre of
his body, every quivering nerve was in revolt: for he realised, even
then, that there was no room for hope, for doubt,--he knew that what he
had looked upon in the dim light was death.

With an awful pang he now understood why Peggy had made him that strange
pathetic offer. How blind he had been! The English doctor, the man on
whom he had poured such careless scorn, had been right,--terribly right.

At last he uncovered his eyes, and forced himself to gaze upon what lay
before him----

Margaret Pargeter had died in her sleep. She was lying exactly as
Vanderlyn had left her, still folded closely in the rug he had placed so
tenderly about her. But a terrible change had come over the delicate
features--the sightless eyes were wide open, the lips had fallen apart;
his glance, travelling down, saw that her left hand, the hand where
gleamed his mother's wedding ring, was slightly clenched.

Again Vanderlyn passed his hand over his eyes. He stared about him with
a touch of helpless bewilderment, but he could do nothing, even if there
had been anything to do; it was she who had insisted that they should be
unencumbered by any luggage.

He crouched down, and, with an involuntary inward shrinking, took up the
chilly, heavy hand and tried to warm it against his cheek; then he
shivered, his teeth chattered, with a groan of which the sound echoed
strangely in his ears he hid his face in the folds of her grey cloth
gown----For a few moments the extent of his calamity blotted out
everything.

And then, as Vanderlyn lay there, there suddenly opened before him a way
of escape from his intolerable agony and sense of loss, and he welcomed
it with eager relief. He raised his head, and began to think intently.
How inexplicable that he had not thought of this--the only way--at once!
It was so simple and so easy; he saw himself flinging wide open the
narrow carriage door, and then, with that still figure clasped in his
arms, stepping out into the rushing darkness....

His mind was now working with incredible quickness and clearness. How
good it was to know that here, in France, there need be--there would
be--no public scandal! In England or America the supposed suicide of two
such people as were Margaret Pargeter and himself could not hope to be
concealed; not so in France.

Here, as Vanderlyn knew well, there was every chance that such a love
tragedy as the one of