“I am glad I feel so kindly toward her—glad I called her mother,” she thought, and was conscious of a keen pain in her heart as she looked upon the white dead face on which suffering and remorse had left their marks. Notwithstanding the hour and her own fatigue, Queenie was among the number who stood by the open grave where all that was mortal of Christine was buried, and she would not leave until the grave was filled and all the work was done. Then, taking Pierre’s arm, she went back to the hotel, and going to Phil’s room laid her tired head upon the hands he stretched toward her and cried bitterly, while Phil soothed and caressed her until she grew quiet and could tell him all the particulars of Christine’s death. “There was much that was noble and good in her,” she said, “and had she lived I would have tried to do right, and with you to help and encourage me I might have succeeded.” “Yes,” Phil answered her, “I am sure you would; but it is better for her to be at rest.” And Phil was right; for had Christine lived she could only have been a source of unhappiness to Queenie, who, with the best of intentions, could never fully have received her as a mother. God knew best, and took to himself the weary woman, who had been more sinned against than sinning, and whose memory was held in the hearts of those whose lives she had been instrumental in saving as the memory of a saint. CHAPTER L. PHIL’S STORY. He did not tell it until two days after Christine’s burial, for Queenie would not listen to him until she felt that he was past all possible danger of a relapse. Then, with her head leaning upon his arm and his hand clasped in hers, she heard how he had escaped from death on that night when the boat was capsized and he found himself struggling for life in the angry waters.