had it all reasoned out as clearly as could be; there was morality and common sense, the welfare of other people, the man's own good, really, and yet--well, I didn't do it." "Didn't?" It was Jarrick who put the question a little breathlessly. "No. I stepped toward him--so! One step, then another, very slowly, hardly a foot at a time, and all the while I watched the infernal circle of that gun, expecting it every minute to spit fire. I didn't want to go; I went against my will. I was scared, too, mortally scared; my legs were like lead--I had to think every time I lifted a foot--and in a queer, crazy way I seemed to feel two people, a man and a woman, holding me back, plucking at my sleeves. But I went. All the time I kept saying, very steady and quiet: 'Don't shoot, Whitney! D'you hear! Don't shoot or I'll kill you!' Wasn't it silly? Kill him! Why, he had me dead ten times before I got to him. But I suppose some trace of sanity was knocking at his drink-sodden brain, for he didn't shoot--just watched me, his red eyes blinking. So! One step at a time--nearer and nearer--I could feel the sweat on my forehead--and then I jumped. I had him by the legs, and we went down in a heap. He shot then; they always do! But I had him tied up with the rags of his own shirt in a trice. Then I brought him water in my hat and let him drink it, drop by drop. After a while he came to altogether. But he never thanked me; he wasn't that kind of a brute. I got him into town the morning of the second day and turned him over to his wife. So you see"--Hardy hesitated and looked at the circle of our faces with an odd, appealing look--"it _is_ queer, isn't it? All mixed up. One doesn't know." He sank back in his chair and began to scratch, absent-mindedly, at a holder with a match. The after-theatre crowd was beginning to come in; the sound of laughter and talk grew steadily higher; far off an orchestra wailed inarticulately. "What became of them?" I asked. Hardy looked up as if startled. "The Whitneys? Oh--she died--Martin wrote me. Down there, within a year. One would know it would happen. Like a flame, I suppose--suddenly." "And the man--the fellow who was in love with her?" Hardy stirred wearily. "I haven't heard," he said. "I suppose he is still alive." He leaned over to complete the striking of his match, and for an instant his arm touched a glass; it trembled and hung in the balance, and he shot out a sinewy hand to stop it, and as he did so the sleeve of his dinner jacket caught. On the brown flesh of his forearm I saw a queer, ragged white cross--the scar a snake bite leaves when it is cicatrized. I meant to avoid his eyes, but somehow I caught them instead. They were veiled and hurt. THE WAKE[2] BY DONN BYRNE From _Harper's Magazine_ [2] Copyright, 1915, by Harper and Brothers. Copyright, 1916, by Donn Byrne.