"Since you have thrust yourself into our most private affairs, Mr. Osborne," said young Coleman stiffly, "you must know that we are not speaking lightly; we are both agreed that it is best-that weHe broke down a little and looked at the girl, who nodded defiantly but could not trust her voice to speak.

Osborne stood staring at them, clasping and unclasping his hands. Finally he spoke again.

"It is quite incredible-there must be some mistake," he said in a low voice. "You surely cannot mean to wreck your

happiness this early! Why, only last week you were the best of friends. It was only three days ago" he turned eagerly to the boy, who was sulkily opening and closing the blind of the shutter behind him-"I saw you kiss her as we rode along in the banana grove and you thought Randolph and I were not looking. Haven't you told me," he looked at the girl, "over and over as we walked up and down in the garden here in the moonlight and along the river, how you adored him, and that you would do a hundred times as much for him as you had already done?" She gave a little sob and hid her face, leaning against the hammock rope. "Don't I know by a thousand signs that you love each other?-by all those ways that at first repelled, disgusted me, and then amused and then won me, until now I have come to look for them in you two, to need them, to feel cheated when I no longer see them? And is this to be the

end? Don't let it-don't let it!" His voice and gesture pleaded powerfully.

The boy flung up his head in irritated defiance.

"It is the end," he said coldly. "She --she hates me-we can't get on together decently; why, only to-night

Osborne stopped him imperiously. "I don't want to hear what happened to-night. I have no right to know-I am pleading with you for your whole lives. To-night will pass and be forgotten; but what you are planning to do will live with you as long as you live. You do you realize in the least what you are doing? You have won this girl's love and she has left everything to go with you, and now you propose calmly to break her heart and take her back to her

people! You propose to rid yourself of her and to come back here and forget her! And you call yourself a man!"

Suddenly the boy straightened up and looked at Osborne. He advanced a step in the moonlight and held up a menacing finger.

"And you-what have you done? Do you think I don't know your story? I have heard it from half a dozen people. You are a great one to be my censor! How dare you take me to task when you know what you have done? But Madge doesn't know-listen," he ran on excitedly, turning to the girl, his boyish voice breaking as he spoke "this man, who is so shocked at us, married a girl like yourself, and he quarrelled with her and left her and came

down here to forget her! Isn't there something in the Bible about casting out the beam in your own eye before you attend to anybody else's?"

Osborne took a step backward and leaned shaking against the corridor railing. I sprang to his side, and I think he would have fallen if I had not steadied him. He looked at me quietly.

"It is quite true, Randolph. He is right. I have no business to condemn him when- -"His voice stopped. He shook himself slightly and turned toward the girl, but he did not look at her. "It is quite true," he repeated. "I was as irritable and capricious and hard to manage as Coleman yonder, and I loved her as he does you, and I broke her heart as he is breaking yours. In a fit of anger I left her as he proposes leaving you, and I came down here to forget her; but in this place one does not forget-one does nothing but remember with bitterness. The remembrance and the bitterness eat into your very soul in this solitude. I have cursed myself a thousand times for having left her."

At her husband's words the young girl had sprung up, and now as Osborne spoke she came slowly forward until she stood before him. The tears were running down hér cheeks and she put out her hand timidly and touched his arm.

"Oh!" she said she could find no words. Osborne looked at her. "You make me think of her a hundred times a day-of all I had and all I have lost! I have lived it all over-all the delight and all the pain!" The girl sank down in the hammock and buried her face in her hands.

but he had flung himself back against the railing and stood staring out into the night with miserable, burning eyes.

I saw a sudden passionate purpose leap into Osborne's pale face. With a palpable effort he squared himself around and laid a hand on Coleman's broad shoulder.

"You are right, my boy. How should I dare condemn you when I think what I have done? But if I prove to you that I am sincere when I tell you that I know that reconciliation and forgiveness and love are the only things in the world for you two— if I prove it-will you follow me?"

The boy turned his miserable eyes—and I saw there were tears in them—from the outer darkness and looked at Osborne. "I don't understand," he said in weary perplexity.

I saw the look of painful effort redouble in Osborne's face.

"There is only one way," he said slowly. He turned from the boy to the girl and back again, as if half hoping they would help him. "If I go to my wife and on my knees beg her for her forgiveness and her love, will you believe me, and will you do likewise?"

For an instant I think none of us even breathed; and then I heard a short, deep sob as Coleman freed himself from Osborne's friendly hand and stumbled forward to where the girl sat in the hammock. With a gesture of infinite tenderness we saw her put her face close down to the bowed head in her lap, and then we slipped away into the darkness.

Until far into the warm, fragrant night I heard Osborne pacing up and down, and I knew that night, with its sudden, great decision, its thrilling renewal of hope and love, was like no other night in all his life.

A month later in my lonely camp in Montana I received the telegram from Osborne which I had awaited with such confidence, saying all was well with him at last.