"Get out of here!" I yelled. "Clear out!" and brandished the oar. He stumbled away a short distance, dropped and crawled a little farther, then lay down on the sand. I made toward Ella. "Is she hurt?" I asked anxiously. "Only fainted away," answered the mother. "That creature frightened her so. He is simply terrible." I went to Dartmoor, prone upon his back, and stooped over him. "Hurt, Dartmoor?" I asked. "My back," he whispered. "He has broken my back. I cannot move and there is no sensation below the waist. Where is he now?" "Lying down over yonder," I answered. "What can I do?" "Nothing. Protect Ella from him." "I will. I'll murder him if need be." "You will not need," he went on in that weakening whisper. "I did too well. He had only my soul to inspire his impulses, without my governing mind. He took my love for Ella only as his mind could interpret it, as mere impulse. He took my anger and vented it upon me. He will die with me. It is but the passing of one soul." Dartmoor was right. He breathed his last in a minute, and I went over to the beast. He, too, lay quiet and still. THE GRINDING OF THE MILLS Now, be it understood at the first word that I have never believed in astrology as an exact science, or even a working hypothesis to explain the curious happenings of life which we ascribe to luck, fate, Providence, the law of cause and effect, or, latterly, to mortal mind. Nor do I offer this story with any intent to help the astrologers in their difficult efforts to prove their science correct; for it proves nothing beyond the scope of coincidence--unless, possibly, that the laws, mathematical and other, beyond human soul life, are past our present comprehension. This is merely the contribution of an experienced old man, grown gray and tired in the effort to understand his fellowman, and who has at last given up the problem, trusting that it may aid some younger investigator. My acquaintance with them began early, very early--in fact I was present at, and assisted at, their birth, which occurred at the same moment, their mothers lying side by side on the same narrow cot in the crowded hospital. There had been a railroad accident, and these two injured women had been carried to the nearby institution where I was serving my apprenticeship in medicine. They recovered in time, went to their separate homes unacquainted, and resumed their lives, one the wife of a wealthy man, the other a scrubwoman. They never met again, nor did their lives conflict; but their children, born at the same moment, and at the same spot, lived out careers that were strangely parallel, strangely consistent with what the astrologers teach.