"I did for a time, not because I blamed you, but because I hated everybody and everything. There were intervals of terrible retrospect and regret; but I made them as infrequent as I could, and finally I stifled them altogether. I grew out of touch with every memory of a life when I was comparatively innocent and happy. I strove to make myself so evil that I could not distinguish an echo if one tried to make itself heard; and I succeeded. Now, all that has fallen from me,--in the last few hours, since I have had relief from physical torments,--for I could not drink after I saw you, and I had to pay the penalty. It is not odd, I suppose, that I should suddenly revert: my impulses originally were all toward good, my mental impulses; the appetite was always a purely physical thing; and when Death approaches, he stretches out a long hand and brushes aside the rubbish of life, letting the soul's flower see the light again for a few moments. Give me the drops. Now that you are here, I want to live as long as I can." He lifted her head, and gave her the medicine. She lay back suddenly, pinioning his arm. "Let it stay there," she said. "Are you sure, Nina, that your case is so bad?" he asked. "Couldn't you make an effort, and let me take you to England?" She shook her head with a cynical smile. "My machinery is like a dilapidated old engine that has been eaten up with rust, and battered by stones for twenty years. There isn't a bit of me that isn't in pieces." She closed her eyes, and slept for a half hour. He put both arms about her and his head beside hers. "Dudley," she said, finally. "Well?" "I had not thought of the baby for God knows how many years. It was no memory for me. But since the other day I have been haunted by that poor little grave in the big forest--" "Would you like to have it brought down to Lone Mountain?" She hesitated a moment, then shook her head. "No," she said. "In the vault with my mother and--and--_him_? Oh, no! no!" "If I build a little vault for you and her will you sign a paper giving me--certain rights?" Her face illuminated for the first time. "Oh, yes!" she said. "Oh, yes! Then I think I could sleep in peace." Thorpe rang for Cochrane and the gardener, wrote the paper, and had it duly witnessed. It took but a few moments, and they were alone again. "I wonder if I shall see _her_--and you again, or if my unlucky star sets in this world to rise in the next? Well, I shall know soon. "I am going, I think," she said a few moments later. "Would you mind kissing me? Death has already taken the sin out of my body, and down deep is something that never was wholly blackened. That is yours. Take it." It was an hour before she died, and during that hour he kissed her many times. A FRAGMENT It was some twelve years later that Thorpe received a copy of a San Francisco newspaper, in which the following article was heavily marked:-- WHAT AM I BID? AN AUCTION SALE OF FUNERAL AND WEDDING TRAPPINGS