to the top, to im路estigate, to try more experimentsand why, do you suppose? For myseli? .~II ,the time I was such a fool, such a fool! \ Vhy chdn t I stay at home, like other sensible business mortals, an <I get the girl 1 wanted? Why? (listlessly) Oh, because I dreamt a dream, and it was all this getrich-quick and come home the moneyed man-~or myself. P.:ow l am the moneyed man, and 1 w1sh I 路had o-one to the devil, or died of the fever or b " . something-! know rm a fool, puttmg up a protesting hand to the girl's horrified "Bobby." "I know 1 don't deserve the girl I wanted, and 1 know he is my Lest friend who has got her-that T'm treacherous, and cowardly, and a beast to be despised." The girl listened unconsci~msly._ Far off sh_e heard the flow of words conung dimly, her sensibilities. her powers of action seemed deadenedshe mustn't let him talk wildly this way, of course not; it was wrong. all wrong, and tomorrow she was to be married. but before this vague rensentment there was a picture of two little sunbonneted figures on a long, long beach of warm s~nd, and the sea always rolling. rolling in, in blue wh1te breaker~, and shading off into the blue, blue sky at the honzon. only broken by the masts of a single ship shining in the mellow "路armth of a noonday sun. and again the drowsy feeling- came over her _and she felt the brisk sea air blowing her bonnet stnngs *
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\\'hen she looked up the man was standing moodily o-azing out of the window. A tear splashed on her t.hand and brought her back to reality. "Bobby, hvw long ha\"e you known this?" "Know it? Why, Caroline, ever since you and I played in the sand together. That's all I've tho~tg:ht of, worked for, and I was on my way at la~t reJ~IC颅 ing, to you, when, as I came I got my mat!, wluch had been waiting for me, and read it only after r had sailed. There were letters which I should have gotten months before, and one telling me. and enclosing the clipping. For awhile 1 thought I'd sail back by the next boat, but when I landed 1 knew I wouldn't for I couldn't.., \!\Then he turned from the windo~v again he was wiping the blood from his lower lip. "Now, the best I can do is to say o-ood-bye, old girl, and go back-the sooner the t> better for a man in my place. " Still the girl sat in a half stupor, her eyes wide and fastened unseeingly on the half packed suitcase. Oh. the irony of it! That suitcase standing there waiting. everything ready, and on the day before her wedding, and the girl in love with another man. Yes. she knew now. there was no longer any doubt on that point. But the injustice, the unfairness to the other, the invitations out. the presents. the horror and scandal. but. above all. the terrible cut to the man who loved her-her mother. the wedding tomorrow, the shocked friends and the pitying shame for him. And the other side? Should she,
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