He had come through like the hero in a best-seller.... Lacking only a heroine.... If there had been any heroine it was Eve Strayer. Drama had gone wrong in that detail.... So perhaps, after all, it was real life he had been living and not drama. Drama, for the masses, must have a definite beginning and ending. Real life lacks the latter. In life nothing is finished. It is always a premature curtain which is yanked by that doddering old stage-hand, Johnny Death. * * * * * Smith sat his saddle, thinking, beginning to be sobered now by the inevitable reaction which follows excitement and mirth as relentlessly as care dogs the horseman. He had had a fine time,--save for the horror of the Rocktrail.... He shuddered.... Anyway, at worst he had not shirked a clean deal in that ghastly game.... It was God's mercy that he was not lying where Salzar lay, ten feet--twenty--a hundred deep, perhaps--in immemorial slime---- He shook himself in his saddle as though to be rid of the creeping horror, and wiped his clammy face. Now, in the false dawn, a blue-jay awoke somewhere among the oaks and filled the misty silence with harsh grace-notes. Then reaction, setting in like a tide, stirred more sombre depths in the heart of this young man. He thought of Riga; and of the Red Terror; of murder at noon-day, and outrage by night. He remembered his only encounter with a lovely child--once Grand Duchess of Esthonia--then a destitute refugee in silken rags. What a day that had been.... Only one day and one evening.... And never had he been so near in love in all his life.... That one day and evening had been enough for her to confide to an American officer her entire life's history.... Enough for him to pledge himself to her service while life endured.... And if emotion had swept every atom of reason out of his youthful head, there in the turmoil and alarm--there in the terrified, riotous city jammed with refugees, reeking with disease, half frantic from famine and the filthy, rising flood of war--if really it all had been merely romantic impulse, ardour born of overwrought sentimentalism, nevertheless, what he had pledged that day to a little Grand Duchess in rags, he had fulfilled to the letter within the hour. As the false dawn began to fade, he loosened hunting coat and cartridge sling, drew from his shirt-bosom the morocco case. It bore the arms and crest of the Grand Duchess Theodorica of Esthonia. His fingers trembled slightly as he pressed the jewelled spring. It opened on an empty casket. In the sudden shock of horror and astonishment, his convulsive clutch on the spring started a tiny bell ringing. Then, under his very nose, the empty tray slid aside revealing another tray underneath, set solidly with brilliants. A rainbow glitter streamed from the unset gems in the silken tray. Like an incredulous child he touched them. They were magnificently real.