im--these winds. A sigh, a certain
coolness, a faint whisper--that was all as they entered the shaft and
sped upward like ghosts of a busy world.

Steve turned and ran rapidly up the stairs. He could hardly fit his
key, he was in such haste to escape from that lonesome hallway. Day
was passing out by the western gate when he entered his room, and it
would seem that heaven, in all its untold beauty, had come forth to
greet her. Such a sky! It fairly overwhelmed him, and he turned to the
east, as one seeks shelter in the shadow from a too brilliant light.
Even the east was whispering the story, but gently and in cadences fit
for weak human senses, just as winds in the tall tree-tops faintly
repeat the harmonies of heaven.

To and fro Steve walked in the spacious lonesome apartments. Was his
present solitude an earnest of his future? Was he forever to be
denied the warm human clasp of another's hand? Was he doomed evermore
to see the oncoming of the night from out some deserted room?

The west was fading now. Day had passed and carried light and sunshine
with her. The clouds were moving hither and yonder restlessly, and in
their ghostly passage they took on weird shapes.

Steve watched them with a strange interest--an interest just tinged
with superstition, half rejecting, half receiving their import,
something as one watches the shifting of cards in the hands of a
wizard.

He looked out over the waters of the lake, but the east was leaden
now; her lips were sealed; she had passed silently into the night.
Even in the west there was but a fitful glowing, and the clouds came
and went.

The room had grown black--insupportable! Steve could not endure it--he
must light it in some way. A lamp would not do. It was a warm evening,
wonderfully warm for that season, but he must have firelight.

He looked about him and soon found kindling and fuel, for he had as
yet disturbed none of the room's furnishings. His lease was not spent;
he could use the place for storage for quite a time yet.

The warmth of the cheery flame was welcome to him, for despite the
heat of the evening he felt a chilliness which he did not know meant
fever. It was not among possibilities that a man of Steve's fine
sensitive fiber could do violence to his idea of right without
disaster to his physical being. He had fled from his post of duty, he
felt himself to be a deserter, and this deflection was necessarily
accompanied by physical disturbance.

As