It chilled his soul with its presage of disaster. He saw the hand of destiny, and everything in him rebelled against the inexorable cruelty of it all. It was infamous that any life should be dominated by a whim of the Fates; that any creature should enter this world with a silken cord about his throat. Destiny. Does it mould our lives; or do our lives, inundated with the forces of heredity, mould our destinies? He tried to grapple with the thought; but through the pain and confusion of his mind he could only feel the presence of unseen fingers spelling out the words written in a hidden past. 'I wonder,' said Durwent, after a pause of several minutes, during which neither had spoken, 'what happens when this is finished.' 'Do you mean--after death?' said Selwyn, forcing his mind clear of its clouds. Durwent nodded and leaned wearily with his arms on the bank. 'I tried to think it out the night before I was to be shot,' he said. 'I can't just say what I did think--but I know there's something after this world. Selwyn, is there a God? I wonder if there will be another chance for the men who have made a mess of things here.' The American turned towards the young fellow, whose pale face looked singularly boyish, and had a wistfulness that touched him to his very heart. Durwent was gazing over the grass into the distance, oblivious of everything about him, and in the blue of his eyes, which borrowed lustre from the morning, there was the mysticism of one who is searching for the land which lies beyond this life's horizon. 'I wonder,' repeated Durwent dreamily. Selwyn tried to frame words for a reply, but skilled as he was in the interpretation of thought, he was dumb in confession of his faith. He longed to speak the things which might have brought comfort to the lad's harassed soul, but everything which came to him, echoing from his former years, was so inadequate, so tinctured with smug complacency. Was there a God? The question left him mute. 'There are times,' went on Durwent, almost to himself, 'when my head is full of strange fancies--when I'm listening to music--or at dawn like this. While I was under arrest, a little French girl who had heard I was to die brought some flowers she had picked for me. When I think of that girl, and her flowers, and Elise, and the faithfulness of old Mathews, I do believe there is some kind of a God. . . . Selwyn'--unconsciously his hands stretched forward supplicatingly--'surely these things can't die? . . . There's been so much that's ugly and lonely in my life. . . . Don't you believe that we fellows who have failed will be able to have a little of the things we've missed down here?' 'Dick,' said Selwyn hoarsely, 'I believe'---- The words faltered on his lips, and in silence the two men stood together in the presence of the day's birth. There was a strange calm in the air. The dew on the grass caught a faint sparkle from a ray of sunlight that penetrated the eastern skies. V.