his life had not been worse than that of other men. Indeed, though he
would have been the last to think it, he had some redeeming virtues. But
now at the end the spiritual horizon was as dark as it had been at the
beginning. There before him were the Gates of Death, but not yet would
they roll aside and show the traveller what lay beyond their frowning
face. How could he tell? Perhaps they would not open at all. Perhaps he
now bade his last farewell to consciousness, to earth and sky and sea
and love and all lovely things. Well, that might be better than some
prospects. At that moment Geoffrey Bingham, in the last agony of doubt,
would gladly have exchanged his hopes of life beyond for a certainty of
eternal sleep. That faith which enables some of us to tread this awful
way with an utter confidence is not a wide prerogative, and, as yet,
at any rate, it was not his, though the time might come when he would
attain it. There are not very many, even among those without reproach,
who can lay them down in the arms of Death, knowing most certainly that
when the veil is rent away the countenance that they shall see will
be that of the blessed Guardian of Mankind. Alas! he could not be
altogether sure, and where doubt exists, hope is but a pin-pricked
bladder. He sighed heavily, murmured a little formula of prayer that had
been on his lips most nights during thirty years--he had learnt it as
a child at his mother's knee--and then, while the tempest roared around
him, gathered up his strength to meet the end which seemed inevitable.
At any rate he would die like a man.

Then came a reaction. His vital forces rose again. He no longer felt
fearful, he only wondered with a strange impersonal wonder, as a man
wonders about the vital affairs of another. Then from wondering about
himself he began to wonder about the girl who sat opposite to him. With
the rain came a little lightning, and by the first flash he saw her
clearly. Her beautiful face was set, and as she bent forward searching