A supply of whiskey was on hand, for the ostensible purpose of reviving the victims of the Lost Time mine, as they were drawn up one by one from those treacherous depths, limp and pallid and fainting. But the quantity was sufficient to enable the company of rescuers subsequently to refresh themselves, and Kenniston genially treated the crowd. Some of the men now and then began to coil up the ropes, and again fell to discussing the jeopardy and the disastrous possibilities; and much hilarity and gratulation prevailed amongst the group in the dewy woods, still filled with the slant of the early morning sunshine, when Espey slipped away from it. His heart was still sore, as if it had forgotten to beat except with a dull throb of pain, unrealizing his change of fortune except to sullenly rebel against all the unnecessary woe that had fallen to his lot. As he went along the road, he scarcely noted a flower here and there on the soggy ground. The dash and fret of the stream from the portal of the Lost Time mine caught his attention. He marked its added volume, and, with his familiarity with the terrible subterranean chambers, he could picture to himself the obstacles which lay in its course, and which the blasting from the tunnel or the still-room had brought down. He trembled and grew cold with the thought of his jeopardy. He mechanically cursed anew Taft's name, as he had done again and again since his voice, his "partin' compliments," had been audible before the charge in the tunnel had been fired. He shuddered again as he recalled the sound of the water backing up ever higher and higher through those black dungeons, lisping and hissing its insidious threat through all the long night. How woeful it had been--with the wild terror of his companions to contemplate, till he was as wild with the terror of them as of his own fate--to look momently to meet death here, without a soul on earth to truly care, to anguish for him as he was anguished--He paused, the tenor of his thought breaking abruptly. Had he seen it before, or had he only fancied that cardinal flower lying in the sun on the gray rock by the water? Was it not thus that he should know that Julia had passed and had thought of him,--was not this their covenant? He doubtfully picked up the delicate spray--another; still, it might be an accident, a coincidence. A cluster of jewel-weeds lay caught in the bark of the log that served as footbridge, and swayed and glowed in the sun; it was in his hand when he reached the further bank. As far as one might hope to command a glimpse from the mine, the fragile tokens were scattered. They were full of dew; their breath allured him. They trembled as with some shy, timorous thought in his trembling hand. The color had come into his face; a light was in his eyes; his tired, troubled pulses were beating fast, strong, with a new rhythm. And as Julia, still loitering homeward, her head bare, her hands empty, heard a footstep behind her