person than the Emily Granville she had known for twenty-four years seemed to be speaking and thinking in these wild and strange surroundings.

"I will not get better—I know," said the Shanghai woman presently. "It is pneumonia again—the women of the lighted houses cannot stand the open." She sat up quickly, clutching at her breasts. "I am like fire—and lead—in here. Oh, God, it is so hard to breathe!"

"Can't I think of something to do for you?"

"Only hold me—just this way," and she sank in Emily's lap again. "I saw the way you held him. You are—very kind. You were made for—for the mother of men—strong men—like my—my captain out there. No; do not draw away from me. You would trust him if you could have seen him—him and that Chang—that night in Shanghai. There was a place for everybody—everybody—but the women—the toys from behind the green jalousies. Ask Chang—he—he will tell you. They picked us out—of the dark river. It's very dark now, isn't it? Very dark——" Her whisper trailed away in a low moan. Emily tried to make her take a drink of water, but she refused it. "Will you say, 'Our—Our Father'"—and Emily repeated the Lord's Prayer very slowly and sensed that the other woman's lips were following the words dumbly. "Ask him—my captain—please if he—will not speak to me," Elsie murmured after a long silence.

Emily heard a movement aft and, pushing back the flap of the rug, saw Chang relieving Lavelle at the helm. The dawn was just pinking the eastern sky.

Lavelle saw Emily's hand beckoning and he crept forward. Elsie held out a hand to him and he took it. Her pulse flashed to him a history of what she was suffering. A glance at her face revealed to him the touch of death upon it.

"I'm going away—going home," Elsie whispered. "Will you hold——The dawn!"

Lavelle understood her glance upward and pushed away the rug. He got behind her and lifted her into a sitting posture. She still clung to his hand.

"Isn't it wonderful?" she asked, looking toward Emily and then up into Lavelle's face. He nodded. "I am not afraid, captain. I've learned—last night I learned—from you—to die unafraid."

A marvelous smile lighted her face. The marks of her hard years sped from it forever in the glow of the new day which suffused the sea and the sky with a spirit of the infinite mystery this waif of life was on the threshold of solving.

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