“We shall _make_ it hold good,” she answered valiantly, though deep down in her heart some indefinite premonition of failure still whispered and stirred. Yet, she tried to tell herself, if they had sinned, surely they had been purged in fire! Surely it was not too late to shake off the memory of that old entangled and disordered life they were leaving behind them! It was not so much for herself that she feared, as for her husband. He was a man, and through his wayward manhood, she told herself, swept tides and currents uncomprehended and uncontrolled by her weaker woman’s heart. But she would shield him, and watch him, and, if need be, fight for him and with him. She looked up at his face with her studious eyes, after a little ineloquent gesture of final resignation; and he laughed down at her, and crushed her arm happily against his side. Then he emitted a long and contented sigh. “Do you know how I feel?” he said, at last, as they began to pace the deck, side by side, and the smoke-plumed city, crowned with its halo of purplish mist, died down behind them. “I feel as if we were two ghosts, being transported into another life! I feel exactly as if you and I were disembodied spirits, travelling out through lonely space, to find a new star!” “Yes, my beloved, I know!” she said, comprehendingly, with her habitual little head-shake. Then she, too, gave vent to a sigh, yet a sigh not touched with the same contentment as Durkin’s. “Oh, my own, I’m so tired!” she murmured. He looked down at her, knowingly, but said nothing. Then she stopped and leaned over the rail, breathing in the buoyant salt air. He stood close beside her, and did the same. “It’s fresh and fine and good, isn’t it!” he cried, blinking back through the strong sunlight where the drifting city smoke still hung thinly on the skyline in their wake. She did not answer him, for her thoughts, at the moment, were far away. He looked at her quietly, where the sea-wind stirred her hair. “Good-bye, Old World, good-bye!” she murmured at last, softly. “Why, you’re crying!” he said, as his hand sought hers on the rail. “Yes,” she answered, “just a little!” And then, for some unknown reason, with her habitual sense of guardianship, she let her arm creep about her uncomprehending husband. From what or against what that shielding gesture was meant to guard him he could not understand, nor would Frances explain, as, with a little shamefaced laugh, she wiped away her tears. “Good-bye, Old World!” he repeated, as he looked back at the widening skyline, with a challenging finality which seemed to imply that what was over and done with was for all time over and done with. . . . “Good-bye!” “Good-bye!” said the woman. But it was not a challenge. It was a prayer. THE END * * * * * Transcriber’s Notes: Punctuation errors have been corrected without note. Other errors have been corrected as noted below: