disgust at his hysteria. Of course everything was all right. Coincidences such as he had been conjuring up for his soul's torment never happened in real life. As to his wife's absence from homethis was a coincidence, but it was on the right side of the ledger. It relieved Peter Findlay of the necessity of thinking up any excuse for having stayed away all night.

He crossed to the bed and rumpled it up, tossing the pillows about in studied disorder. Then, having dressed with elaborate care, he went down-stairs. At the mirror that formed a part of the hatrack he halted for a last pull at his necktie. It was then that he noticed the note from his wife, tacked conspicuously on the hat-rack frame, where normally he would have had not the slightest excuse for passing it by. Gertrude had counted on his halting there, as usual, to hang up

his hat.

"My dear Peter," the note began, "mother is passing through quite unexpectedly on a flying trip to Portland. I have taken the children with me to the hotel. If you-"

Peter Findlay did not bother to read further. He opened the front door and let it slam with unusual vigor as he went down the front steps, whistling.

It was the sight of the children running to meet him, as he turned the corner on his way home that night, that routed Peter Findlay's uncertain complacency-there was something particularly buoyant about the up-flung body of his boy which added poignance to the feeling of swift delight that quickened him. Was he never to forget the soaring figure that had been struck down like a wounded pigeon in its flight?

Gertrude was busy in the kitchen, but she called gaily to her husband as the front door closed upon his home-coming. He shook the children off with a gentle movement and went up-stairs to his room. Behind a rush of business duties he had been safe from all the sharp proddings of remorse. Awaking from the terrible nightmare of his own child's possible death, he had felt the enormous relief and security of every man who shatters a hideous dream; but, vaguely, all day, in spite of his self-satisfaction,

VOL. CXXXVI.-No. 811.-4

he had not been able to quite rid himself of its spell. He had pricked the bubble, yet its moisture still floated on the wind of memory, shapeless but significant.

He threw aside his coat and sat beside the open window, groping for a cure to this curious distemper that was gripping him so relentlessly. When he had slammed the door upon his fears that morning he had thought the issue closed. His family was safe and well. He himself had come through a crisis materially unscathed. The sun had shone, the city had droned with the cheerful hum of early morning; it had seemed good to be alive. Even now he tried to tell himself that nothing was changed. Life was still the comfortable circumstance it had always been. There had been times when Peter Findlay longed for more stirring encounters than fell to his lot; but he was quite ready to admit his desire to choose the form which these tilts with fortune would take. He was learning that Fate gave no chance of either the game or the weapons; all it conceded was the will to meet the issue valiantly. valiantly. Life to Peter Findlay was a more or less personal matter; he had not been given to looking beyond the immediate foreground which his own family made. But as he sat staring out into the slanting summer sunlight it came upon him that there were far-flung backgrounds as well. And this boy whom he had killed, even though not his boy, belonged and would always belong to some such indistinct but vital background that could never be quite blotted out. This mother and father, too-was it possible to touch the hem of their ashstrewn garments and come away with hands indifferent and clean? There were other children in the world, and other mothers and fathers, and other griefs. griefs. Peter Findlay had never shared any of these things. And vaguely he had a sense that his soul had grown sleek and over-confident from standing apart from the flux of life that moved about him.

He had failed in the crucial test; the only thing left was to attempt to purchase peace of mind. He had been trying all day to bribe his unrest with a thousand sophistries, but he realized

now that these covert compromises were making a ruthless blackmailer of his conscience. There was a definite price to be paid, and until he paid that price in full, openly, frankly, he would be the harried slave of his unworthy self. With this realization he came also upon the open road to victory. He would go to this mother and father and confess his fault. He would have the courage to admit defeat. He would be equal to the bitterness of the draught that would surely minister to his soul's sickness.

He rose and gently closed the window. The faint sound of the dinner-bell tinkled from the lower hall.

Peter Findlay went down-stairs.

At table Gertrude and the children were full of yesterday's adventure for a visit to a fashionable hotel was an adventure to all three. At first Gertrude had planned to stay with her mother only for the dinner-hour, but it all had been such a lark, and the children had begged to spend the night, once the thing was suggested.

"We thought you might look us up,' Gertrude explained, as she served the vegetables. "When you didn't come, I tried to get you on the telephone. I hope you weren't worried."

Peter Findlay made no reply. His mind was far away, picturing with a growing satisfaction that amounted almost to smugness the spectacle of himself in the rôle of spiritual prodigal. He longed to throw himself on the mourner's bench and beat his breast and cry aloud for all to see and hear. There was an elation in this hope of audible repentance that made it almost heroic. He was to be the central figure in this drama, and he was finding it hard to feel anything save a theatrical humility at the prospect. How would this father and mother receive his confession? Would they flame with resentment? Perhaps at first. But gradually he would win them by the very pathos of his appeal. "If it had not been for the thought of you-of facing you," he could hear himself explaining, "I should have turned back at once. But somehow-you see I am a father also-I could not bear to brave your grief."

He was recalled from this stirring fic

tion by the sound of Dick's voice directed unmistakably at him. What was the boy talking about? An accident? Something about an accident and an automobile. He was staggering out of a mental fog when Gertrude said:

"It made us late to mother's, but I simply had to wait and see the thing through. Fancy, just a child! About Dick's age. They say he was killed instantly."

Peter Findlay strained at his napkin. "A case of reckless driving, I suppose,' he felt rather than heard himself say.

Gertrude scraped some melted butter from the bottom of a dish and sprinkled it judicially over the individual portions. "No, that's the curious part of it. Everybody who saw the accident agreed it was the child's fault. Nobody could understand why the man drove on. He had nothing to fear from doing the manly thing. If he were a young man

a boy-it might have been different. But they say that the man who drove this car was middle-aged. It's beyond me."

"I think I understand," Findlay found himself saying, with a curious boldness. "I fancy I might be tempted to do the same thing. It wouldn't matter so much, winging a grown-up-but a child. It takes courage to face the parents of a dead child—especially the mother."

He looked up challengingly at his wife. She was sitting back in her seat, and there was an enigmatical smile on her lips.

"Well," she answered, "if that's all that bothered him, he might just as well have been straight. The boy hasn't any parents!"

"Hasn't any parents? How do you know?"

"It says so in to-night's paper. He's an orphan-from-from one of the charitable institutions.'

For the third time in twenty-four hours Peter Findlay felt the relief of a suddenly lifted burden. But the reaction was sharper than it had ever been -he

he was learning to be wary of these quick shifts of Fortune. Besides, in the last hour he had accustomed himself to the hope of these grief-stricken parents who were to absolve him from all

blame. So the boy was an orphan! As Peter Findlay pondered the pathos of this fact he found less and less satisfaction in the course he had pursued. At least he might have fathered the dead. God! how he had allowed circumstance to cheapen him! If he could but recall that brief moment in which fear had made an ignoble bargain with his manhood!

He looked about the table. The eyes that met his gaze were eyes of confidence in him. His wife, the childrenby what magic had he contrived to place himself upon the pedestal raised by their affection? Well, at least one course lay open to him. He could still

cauterize the wounds of disillusionment with a frank confession of his fault. His Scotch ancestry made him always scornful of spiritual supplications; it was hard to bend the knee of humility. It had seemed easy enough to cast himself upon the mercy of the shadowy figures his mind had conjured up for the last act of his theatrical adventure, but he knew now that a greater bitterness was in store for him. He must tell his wife!

A

He must tell his wife, for the simple reason that it was not necessary. forced confession would have no moral value. It was the free-willed element in his determination that gave him the hope of regeneration. It gave him the hope also that Gertrude might understand and applaud. His very courage would win her. To tell all, just at the moment when he had successfully eluded every trap there was something fine and stirring in the thought!

There came a sudden, sharp ring at the door-bell. Peter Findlay started. "Dick, suppose you go, "Gertrude suggested, as she passed her husband the well-filled bread-tray.

The boy scrambled up with alacrity. "It was so stupid of that man," Gertrude went on, placidly, "to run away and leave that child to his fate. Because they'll get him, anyway. There must have been some one in the crowd who took his number. There always is." Peter Findlay broke his bit of bread in two. "Did you ever try to get the number of a moving car?" he found himself sneering at his wife.

The boy stood in the doorway, and his white face was reflected in the mirror above the mantel. "It's a policeman,' he whispered; "he wants to see dad." Peter Findlay closed his eyes.

"Well," Gertrude's voice struck out, gaily, "isn't that exciting! Come, Dick, don't look so scared! Nobody's going to carry your father off."

"I should say not," broke in Findlay, nervously. "Any one would think I was the man you were just talking about-who ran down the child."

He rose as he finished his remark, and in that moment he felt the ghastly chill of spiritual nakedness. The innate deceitfulness of these last words added a crowning futility to all the fine things that he had ever hoped for himself. Upon the threshold of expected triumph he had been stripped of every subterfuge and pretense. Even the luxury of a voluntary confession was to be denied him.

And yet, for all the stinging wind of disillusionment that harried his uncovered soul, Peter Findlay felt for the first time on terms of intimacy with himself. From this moment on the battle of life was to be something more than a tilt with the fantastic windmills of self-deceit. He knew his weakness and the odds against him, and he felt a curious desperate courage as he turned toward his wife's still smiling face.

"Yes, that poor man," she was saying; "somehow I can't help feeling sorry for him. Because, after all, his running away was so unnecessary. That's the tragic thing about it. It's just as ifas if "

"As if he'd been snared with an empty pistol," Peter Findlay finished with a bitter laugh. "An empty pistol! ... I can't think of anything in life more galling."

And with that he whipped open the door and went out.

HE British Merchant Marine has been in the thick of it since the beginning. Tales of astounding operations of German raiders, weekly bulletins of subweekly bulletins of submarine losses, and dry official reports of naval engagements with light forces of the enemy, betray its casualties. These various bulletins of the Admiralty cover the actual ships involved; the remainder of the vast fleet is lost in a sea of mystery. Once in a while, however, a tale comes to light revealing activities that are going on, day after day, in every quarter of the globe. One hears, for example, of the capture of a British merchantman in the South Atlantic, but hardly an echo is heard of the exploit of the British steamer that outwitted the same raider by navigating the uncharted passage of Nelson Strait, steaming where the pursuer refused to follow, and by display of daring seamanship eventually reaching Smyth's Channel and the safety of the territorial waters of the Straits of Magellan. Nor does the captain of the German raider talk of the times he ran from an armed British liner. One suspects, however, that such things happen.

In these days, going to sea is a way of speaking of a trade that runs the gantlet of enemy raiders, and fights for its own hulls and cargo in the submarineinfested war zone. It seems the object of the solicitude of the Seaman's Church Institute of New York is the welfare of the officers and seamen of this merchant trade. The institute has now a great sky-scraper-overlooking the Harbor at No. 25 South Street-and here are bedrooms for seven hundred officers and seamen, restaurants, baths, billiard-rooms, reading-rooms, auditorium and the like. There is on the lower floor a post-office and a banking department for transferring money to foreign ports, while on

the top floor is a navigation school to train American youths to officer the new fleet of the Shipping Board. The British Consular Shipping Office-where crews of British vessels are signed on for the voyage and paid off on its completionis on the ground floor. There is an institute baggage-room, where thousands of sea-trunks are stored-there is, in short, every sort of help a seaman may receive in self-respect, all carried on under direction of Dr. Archibald R. Mansfield in behalf of the four hundred thousand seamen entering the port of New York in these war times. In consequence of this the lobbies of the institute are forever crowded with able-bodied seamen, chief gunners' mates of His Majesty's Navy, of the French, the Italian, and the Russian navies, and captains and mates of merchantmen-all of them shipmates, who have tasted something sharper than salt water. Each day many of them sail on a few hours' notice, lacking a scrap of knowledge of their port of destination until the sealed orders, delivered by the consul, are opened at sea; and there are wireless operators in the throng who do not even know the ship they sail on until a few minutes before its departure this secrecy but part of the impenetrable veil thrown about shipping in the port of New York. The full tale of the doings of the Merchant Marine on Admiralty Service has never come to light, but fragments can be picked in places such as this where the men come and go. For fourteen years, now, not one of the apprentices on British merchantmen coming to New York has escaped the acquaintance and elderbrother ministrations of Mr. Howard O. Wood in charge of the institute's work on behalf of the three thousand cadets of the half deck arriving each year.

Mr. Wood's work has nothing in common with sanctimonious conversationthough church comes in at seemly times; it is rather a striving to establish these