He tried to picture the finish -such a short way off now. Very pale, and in bed; the the nurse in collusion with the visitors who came to see him, acting on the motives of duty and pity. "Cheer him up; tell him he's looking a little better to-day."

Then a sort of background of temperature - charts, medicinebottles, flowers, and grapes.

He

Then came the end. saw himself dead with a hideous white shirt on. A mock respectability to be carried on even then.

He heard people saying-as he had heard so often before, "Thank Heaven! that's over. What a merciful relief." His whole soul revolted against the idea- not of death, which seemed entirely incidental and natural, but of the atmosphere which surrounds it in this civilisation of ours.

His manhood revolted against it all. He would avoid that at any cost. He would go out into the desert, and die like an animal, alone, as though realising the sick beast is an object of aversion to its healthy fellows.

Or suicide-he considered it dispassionately: a quick way out, if things got too bad. But no-it wouldn't do. It was the illegality of the act which negatived it in his lawyer's brain.

And then, thinking on in the same strain, he wondered if he could evade the breaking

quick end. If he could put himself in such a position that he would be killed by natural causes

He had reached Oxford Street now, and the crowded pavement made him more alert, and changed the current of his thoughts. At any rate, he had a few months left, and here was a chance at last, for a short time, to enjoy the real pleasures of life. Not the tinsel make-believe joys of town -no, the real thing, obtainable only in the big open spaces of Nature: like the delights of the old yachting days, the kick of the tiller, and the spray and wind on one's face.

Then the two lines of thought linked themselves up. Why not just sail out into the ocean? He might even get somewhere, and at any rate he would avoid the sick-bed and its ghastly atmosphere.

In ten days' time his affairs were all in order, and he was at Liverpool Street Station with a ticket to a little port on the East Coast.

With one exception he had told no one of his sentence, merely saying that he had been advised by his doctor to throw up his work and take a holiday. There was one person, however, whom he felt he must see before he went. She was an old friend-a very dear old friend-who, if the Fates had been kinder, might have been something more. He had called on her, and

found her extraordinarily restrained and formal, which contrasted strangely with her usual very friendly welcome. After half an hour of the most frigid intercourse he had had with her during their thirty years of intimacy, he had been glad to go.

That same evening he had received a letter from her, couched in the most loving terms. It told him how she had recently dreamt of him as being in danger; how she had been continually thinking of him and worrying about him, and asked for immediate assurance that all was well. She added that he had been so constantly in her thoughts that, when he suddenly appeared she was quite upset and distressed, and to hide her feelings, of which she was rather ashamed, she was afraid she had been almost rude in her formality.

The letter affected Stayson profoundly. Not only did the telepathy argue a tremendous bond between them-a sympathetic dovetailing of minds, -but here was something right beyond the range of his experience.

He wrote back and told her all, enjoining her to silence.

"If we can feel for each other apart, death may hold out the rosiest of hopes," he wrote e; and from that time he often felt, suddenly and without conscious effort, that he was communing with her.

That was the first rift in the materialistic clouds, and it was destined to widen and

widen, until at the last the sun shone clear between.

That evening he was walking along the sea-wall of the muddy estuary, and the smell of sea-weed, the wind bearing the redshank's plaintive note from far away on the saltings, and the sight of the smacks scudding back to harbour, all awoke long-hidden memories of youth and laughter.

There, and in the parlour of the inn that night, talking to the old fishermen, he recaptured the spirit of an old love and glamour.

Next morning he was up early, and boyishly impatient to get down to the waterside. It was a bright sunny morning, and Stayson seemed to live at cloud-high level.

He enjoyed his breakfast in the old oak-beamed diningroom supremely,-every pull of his pipe, and each yard of the walk from the hotel down to the front, where he saw spread out before him every conceivable type of small craft, yachts and smacks, and launches and barges, lying either at their moorings or up on the muddy banks.

Whatever might happen afterwards, for a time he was going to enjoy himself thoroughly.

The sea-the mother seaour home and element for thousands of years before we took on human form, called to him.

As is the case with most men, he could not worship the goddess direct she was too impenetrable, so infinitely beyond conception; he could

only pour out his devotion on the hem of her robe. Ropes and sails and spars and tides and soundings would be, to him, as household gods henceforth; he would breathe in the air smelling of pitch and tar and seaweed, and that curious mixture of paraffin and brine peculiar to the cabins of small boats.

He sought out a boatman he had known of old, and found him splicing wire-rope in a long low shed, full of blocks and coils of rope and other nautical stores.

To Stayson's surprise the boatman, Jackson, after a steady scrutiny, remembered him.

drew five foot odd, and was, in all probability, a good seaboat. It was a case of love at first sight with Stayson, and he closed with Jackson at once.

As he was being rowed back to the stage he arranged about repairs. She must be thoroughly overhauled and painted, and then there were a few details of extra lockers and spare sails to be seen to. Moreover,

he wanted her

quickly. Jackson saw to it that she was alongside the stage next high tide, and work was started on her at once.

For the next few weeks, until the boat was ready for sea, Stayson lived up in the

have risked it."

Stayson laughed. To be remembered after twenty-five years solely for a mistake in judgment struck him as amusing, and rather characteristic of the world.

He explained his wants to Jackson, and together they rowed out to see the boats that were for sale. The first one was too big-a ten-tonner. It would take three at least to handle her, and, of course, he must be alone.

The second one seemed the very thing. A small ketch of about five tons, with a cockpit aft leading into quite a roomy little cabin. She was comparatively new, too-five years, and was lined with teak. She had a nine-foot beam,

He ordered the removal of a lot of ballast forrard, thereby earning the disapproval of Jackson. He had two water-tanks built in, one on each side of the cockpit under the seats. He enjoyed all the preparations to the full-and at times completely forgot.

There was always a small crowd of people-natives, longshoremen or fishermen, or visitors-gazing down on the boat from the stage, either out of idle curiosity or airing their opinions as to her capabilities.

Stayson, with his cheery manner, made friends with quite a lot of them, but especially with one small boy, who asked him if he might be allowed to help in the work.

As a matter of fact, he was anything but useful, getting

in the way in the small cramped cabin, and asking innumerable questions; but Stayson recognised in him the true maritime instinct, and, on the few occasions when he did not put in an appearance, he missed him considerably.

One day the boy stayed down till it was getting dark, and his father, a harassed London clergyman, came down to fetch him home. Stayson felt an unreasonable annoyance that the boy should belong to some one else, but as he went away he shouted, "May I come and help you again to-morrow!" and in some measure that seemed to make up for it.

That was his great regret he had no children. It made him feel his life had been a selfish one, and that he had failed to do that for which all creation strove to pass on the gift of life.

To perpetuate oneself, and the woman one loved best, in one's children was to him an immortality of solid fact, and probably the only one that existed.

After that he got on friendly terms with the clergyman, and, accustomed as he was to a habit of keen observation, he could not fail to note what a struggle in life the poor man was having. Apart from that ever-watchful hungry expression of the eyes, which is also common to the wolf, the pariah, and the unfortunates of our cities, the overcoat frayed and worn at collar and cuffs, the pipe pulled impulsively out of the pocket and put back again

without being smoked, and, above all, the ingrained carefulness and almost awe-inspiring sense of money in the boy, all told their tale.

One day he went to tea at their lodgings, and met the clergyman's wife, who had been very ill, and on whose account the family had come down to the sea. She still looked far from well, but several times during the meal made a point of telling Stayson how perfectly fit she was, and what a lot the sea air had done for her. Stayson sensed that there was a financial difficulty about the holiday, for which reason she wished to terminate it, and that these remarks were for the benefit of her husband. He admired the splendid bravery of it all, and, like one looking on at a fight, felt rather insignificant and humble.

One afternoon Stayson was down on the boat, painting the cabin roof, when Jackson asked him what he was going to call her. Apparently by a double shift of ownership she had been left nameless. Stayson painted on a few minutes in silence.

"I'll call her the Sarcophagus," he answered at length. "Here I'll write it down: put it in dark-green letters,-quite small under the counter."

Jackson had learnt by now that it didn't do to argue with Stayson, but it struck him that a boat whose name was painted dark green on a background of black might as well be nameless.

A few days afterwards she

was ready for sea, and Jackson, the clergyman, and the boy came out with him for a trialtrip. It was a fine sailing day, a nice fresh sou'wester giving them a soldier's wind. They sailed out to the open sea, and the boat rose jauntily to the small waves. There is the very essence of life in the movement of a small sailingboat, responsive to each puff of wind and each movement of the tiller, and meeting each wave with a cheeky buoyancy. It struck an answering chord in Stayson and his guests, and it was a delightful day of jollity and picnic. Going home up the estuary the boat was put through her pacings, hove to, jibed, and sailed as close into the wind as she would go. Stayson was thoroughly satisfied with her performance, and even the taciturn Jackson muttered approval.

For several weeks thereafter Stayson sailed the boat every day, threading his way up halfforgotten channels between muddy banks, or going out to sea to those highways of the world where steamers passed, bound to and from every port from China to Peru. He enjoyed it thoroughly, tossing about with the sea-birds, his only companions.

Then one day, after a particularly hard day's sailing, he had another prolonged coughing fit. He had been warned by his doctor that it would probably recur, so he was not surprised. But he took his lesson from it. Next day he ordered stores from London,

sufficient to last him two or three months, and spent the day getting things ready for an early departure.

When the stores came they made a goodly pile in the shed, and Jackson looked askance at it. There was something in Stayson's manner that forbade him questioning; but now, among other things, he understood why some of the ballast had been taken out.

That night they loaded the stores into the Sarcophagus. Stayson insisted on it being done after dark, as he did not wish to draw the attention of the inevitable lookers-on. They carried tins of biscuits and meat and game, choice wines and spirits, and all the necessaries and luxuries for a long voyage. It was midnight before they finished, and everything was snugly stored away, and Jackson, reflecting on a fiver," was thankful he had not exhibited any curiosity.

During the night Stayson had two bad coughing boutspainful and distressing-and felt far too weak to think of starting in the morning. So he just stayed in his bunk, for he was living altogether on the boat now, and listened to the silvery sounds of the tide, cutting past the mooring chain and swishing along the sides of the boat.

The boy rowed out in the afternoon, and Stayson felt absurdly glad to see him. Provided a boy is not shy he makes a most excellent companion, for he will alternate a great volubility about