“Then you must have stopped them. You were horrified enough to know that I had dared to take the only honest way left me to make a living. I know you, Randolph Pinkney! You'd rather see Joaquin Muriatta, the Mexican bandit, standing before you to-night with a revolver, than the helpless, shamed, miserable Mornie Nixon. And you can't help yourself, unless you throw me over the cliff. Perhaps you'd better,” she said, with a bitter laugh that faded from her lips as she leaned, pale and breathless, against the bowlder. “Ruth will tell you--” began Rand. “D--n Ruth!” Rand turned away. “Stop!” she said suddenly, staggering to her feet. “I'm sick--for all I know, dying. God grant that it may be so! But, if you are a man, you will help me to your cabin--to some place where I can lie down NOW, and be at rest. I'm very, very tired.” She paused. She would have fallen again; but Rand, seeing more in her face than her voice interpreted to his sullen ears, took her sullenly in his arms, and carried her to the cabin. Her eyes glanced around the bright party-colored walls, and a faint smile came to her lips as she put aside her bonnet, adorned with a companion pinion of the bright wings that covered it. “Which is Ruth's bed?” she asked. Rand pointed to it. “Lay me there!” Rand would have hesitated, but, with another look at her face, complied. She lay quite still a moment. Presently she said, “Give me some brandy or whiskey!” Rand was silent and confused. “I forgot,” she added half bitterly. “I know you have not that commonest and cheapest of vices.” She lay quite still again. Suddenly she raised herself partly on her elbow, and in a strong, firm voice, said, “Rand!” “Yes, Mornie.” “If you are wise and practical, as you assume to be, you will do what I ask you without a question. If you do it AT ONCE, you may save yourself and Ruth some trouble, some mortification, and perhaps some remorse and sorrow. Do you hear me?” “Yes.” “Go to the nearest doctor, and bring him here with you.” “But YOU!” Her voice was strong, confident, steady, and patient. “You can safely leave me until then.” In another moment Rand was plunging down the “slide.” But it was past midnight when he struggled over the last bowlder up the ascent, dragging the half-exhausted medical wisdom of Brown's Ferry on his arm. “I've been gone long, doctor,” said Rand feverishly, “and she looked SO death-like when I left. If we should be too late!” The doctor stopped suddenly, lifted his head, and pricked his ears like a hound on a peculiar scent. “We ARE too late,” he said, with a slight professional laugh. Indignant and horrified, Rand turned upon him. “Listen,” said the doctor, lifting his hand. Rand listened, so intently that he heard the familiar moan of the river below; but the great stony field lay silent before him. And then, borne across its bare barren bosom, like its own articulation, came faintly the feeble wail of a new-born babe. III. STORM.