In the moonlight it looked very quiet. One might sleep there without dreams if people would only leave one alone, but they would not. He leant over the parapet and smiled at the oddness of one hive of swarming atoms, objecting to another hive of atoms choosing the hollow of a pool wherein to rest, interfering to fish it up and put it somewhere else in order to disintegrate into atoms again. And after the atoms? There lay the question. The atom and the human consciousness? Were not both an equal mystery born of the unity beyond? As he stood there absorbed in thought the sound of rapid footsteps echoed down the steep road from Dinas and, not wishing to be seen, he stepped back at once into the shadow of a tree that overhung the bridge. Looking up the roadway he saw a woman's figure. She was running swiftly with a curious unevenness, a curious uncertainty, yet evidently with some set purpose. As she passed him he caught a glimpse of her face, and--mere hive of atoms though he was--he started after her in a second. None too soon either! He had just had hold of her in time, as she wavered for an instant on the parapet. "You young fool!" he said roughly. "What's the matter? What are you doing that for?" The girl--she did not look more than twenty--stared at him vacantly as if she did not understand what he meant, then with a little cry of horror apparently at herself, covered her face with her hands, and crouched down beneath his touch in a perfect storm of sobs. "Don't cry!" he said more kindly, "What is it all about? What were you going to do?" "I--I don't know," she wept. "It--it came upon me suddenly that it was the only way--it swept me off my feet--oh! wicked, wicked girl that I am--if--if it hadn't been for you--Oh! what shall I do? What shall I do?" "What's wrong?" he asked, impatient at her helpless emotion. "Anything I can help? Come! it's no use crying. Of course you're a wicked girl, but as you evidently don't really want to kill yourself you'll have to live. So you had better make a clean breast of it. I daresay I can help--if it isn't----" Her face looked innocent and pure, still one never could tell. "Come--out with it"--he went on--"If it's anything about money----" She caught at the word. "Money! Oh! if I could only get the money," she wailed. "Come!" he said with a smile, "if it is only money----"