The voice at the telephone repeated its message. "Norah France was found dead in her room at Carmel this morning. Suicide probably. Empty vial and a letter.... The Carmel authorities haven't come through yet." Frank began to dress hurriedly. Again the telephone rang. Wire for him. Should they send it up? No, he would be down in a minute. The telegram was from Aleta. It read: "Am returning noon train. See you at my apartment six P.M." Stanley did not see his father in the dining room. He gulped a cup of coffee and went down to the office. He had planned an editorial for today. But his mind was full of Norah France just now. Poor child! How she had loved life in her strangely vivid moods! And how she had brooded upon its injustice in her alternating tempers of depression! He remembered now Aleta's mention of a love affair that turned out badly. Aleta had gone down to hearten her friend from these dolors. And he recalled, with a desperate, tearing remorse, a casual-enough remark of Norah's: "You always cheer me up, Frank, when you come to see me." He recalled, as well, her comment, months before, that she would awake from her dream in one way or another. Well, she had fulfilled her promise. God grant, he thought passionately, that the awakening had been in a happier world. At six o'clock he went to Aleta's apartment. She had not yet arrived but presently she came. He saw that she had been crying. She could scarcely speak. "Frank, let us walk somewhere," she said. "I can't go upstairs; it's too full of memories. And I can't sit still. I've got to keep moving--fast." They strode off together, taking a favorite walk through the Presidio toward the Beach. From a hill-top they saw the Exposition buildings rising from what once had been a slough. Aleta paused and looked down. "It's easier to bear--up here," she spoke in an odd, weary monotone, as if she were thinking aloud. "This morning ... I think, if Norah had left anything in the bottle ... I'd have taken it, too." "Why did she do it?" Frank asked quickly. Aleta faced him. "Norah loved a man ... he wasn't worthy. She could see no hope. I wished, Frank, that you might have been there yesterday. You used to cheer her so!" "Don't!" he cried out sharply. The Exposition progressed marvelously. Often Frank and Aleta climbed the winding Presidio ascent and gazed upon its growing wonders. "Beauty will come out of it all," she said one day. "Out of our travail and sorrow and sin. I wish that Norah was here. She loved beauty so!" "Perhaps she is here.... Who knows?" She looked at him startled. He was staring off across the Exposition site, toward the Golden Gate, where a great ship, all its sails spread, swam mysteriously luminous with the sunset. "It's beautiful," he said, a catch in his voice. "It's like life ... coming home in the end ... after long strivings with tempest and wave. I wonder--" he turned to her slowly, "Aleta, will it be like that with us?"