Yes, I was looking straight at the flames, for beyond the flames, past the unburned wing of the house, from the window of an old storeroom, which was never opened, they had told me, I saw the shape of the old negress pass again like a shadow. The next instant my heart melted with joy, for I saw that she was bringing the child in her arms. The little face was pale as death; the red curls were singed to black; but it was the child that she held. Even the unperceiving eyes about me, though they could see only material things, knew that Pell had come unharmed out of the fire. To them it was merely a shadow, a veil of smoke, which surrounded him. I alone saw the dark arms that enfolded him. I alone, among all those standing there in that awful light, recognized that dark compassionate face. Her eyes found me at last, and I knew, in that moment of vision, what the message was that she had for me. Without a word I stepped forward, and held out my arms. As I did so, I saw a glory break in the dim features. Then, even while I gave my voiceless answer, the face melted from me into spirals of smoke. Was it a dream, after all? Was the only reality the fact that I held the child safe and unharmed in my arms? A POINT IN MORALS “The question seems to be—” began the Englishman. He looked up and bowed to a girl in black who had just come in from deck and was taking the seat beside him. “The question seems to be—” The girl was having some difficulty in removing her coat, and he turned to assist her. “In my opinion,” remarked the distinguished alienist, who was returning from a vacation in Vienna, “the question is whether or not civilization is defeating its own aims in placing an exorbitant value on human life.” As he spoke he leaned forward authoritatively and accented his words with foreign precision. “You mean that the survival of the fittest is checkmated,” remarked a young journalist travelling in the interest of a New York daily, “that civilization should practise artificial selection, as it were?” The alienist shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly. “My dear sir,” he protested, “I mean nothing. It is the question that means something.” “Well, as I was saying,” began the Englishman again, reaching for the salt and upsetting a spoonful, “the question seems to be whether or not, in any circumstances, the saving of a human life may become positively immoral.” “Upon that point—” began the alienist; but a young woman, in a white dress, who was seated on the Captain’s right interrupted him. “How could it?” she asked. “At least I don’t see how it could. Do you, Captain?”