quarrel as they stood at the gate on that memorable day. Tormented by jealousy, young Redruth vanished from his native haunts. But had he just cause to do so? There is no evidence for or against. But there is something higher than evidence; there is the grand, eternal belief in woman's goodness, in her steadfastness against temptation, in her loyalty even in the face of proffered riches.

I

"I picture to myself the rash lover wandering, self-tortured, about the world. picture his gradual descent, and, finally, his complete despair when he realizes that he has lost the most precious gift life had to offer him. Then his withdrawal from the world of sorrow and the subsequent derangement of his faculties becomes intelligible.

"But what do I see on the other hand? A lonely woman fading away as the years roll by; still faithful, still waiting, still watching for a form and listening for a step that will come no more. She is old now. Her hair is white and smoothly banded. Each day she sits at the door and gazes longingly down the dusty road. In spirit she is waiting there at the gate, just as he left her his forever, but not here below. Yes; my belief in woman paints that picture in my mind. Parted forever on earth, but waiting! She in anticipation of a meeting in Elysium; he in the Slough of Despond."

"I thought he was in the bughouse," said the passenger who was nobody in particular.

Judge Menefee stirred, a little impatiently. The men sat, drooping, in grotesque attitudes. The wind had abated its violence; coming now in fitful, virulent puffs. The fire had burned to a mass of red coals which shed but a dim light within the room. The lady passenger in her cosey nook looked to be but a formless dark bulk, crowned by a mass of coiled, sleek hair and showing but a small space of snowy forehead above her clinging boa.

Judge Menefee got stiffly to his feet.

"And now, Miss Garland," he announced, "we have concluded. It is for you to award the prize to the one of us whose argument— especially, I may say, in regard to his estimate of true womanhood-approaches nearest to your own conception."

No answer came from the lady passenger. Judge Menefee bent over solicitously. The passenger who was nobody in particular laughed low and harshly. The lady was sleeping sweetly. The Judge essayed to take her hand to awaken her. In doing so he touched a small, cold, round, irregular something in her lap.

"She has eaten the apple," announced Judge Menefee, in awed tones, as he held up the core for them to see.

THE

HE wind was blowing a hurricane, and along the beach Lake Erie was churning up great waves that rivalled the mighty rollers of the Atlantic. Below the harbor of Buffalo, far out in the mist, two scows were tossing about threatening to demolish each other as the waves drove them together. On one of these, dimly outlined, the figure of a man suddenly appeared to the stragglers along the beach: he poised there a second, then plunged forward into the boiling

man, instead of sinking with it, was seen clinging desperately to one of the slippery posts. Another wave lifted him still higher, and before it could drag him down again he had scrambled up out of its grasp. A cry of jubilation arose from the spectators, but it

terrible fight was rapidly exhausting him. Presently he stopped struggling altogether, and the crowd waited to see him sink; but he reappeared again and again, floating as best he could amid such a sea. There were some moments of terrible suspense; then a mounting crest hurled the unfortunate headlong toward the remains of an old pier that thrust its battered stumps above the surges. Then the wave receded, and the

was evident the exhausted swimmer could cling there but for a brief space. It was a respite. however. The next moment

help came.

Farther down the beach Captain Griesser and his crew of lifesavers had seen the struggling Scows and had launched the life-boat in a vain attempt to rescue them. mountainous

The

surges overcame them, the lifeboat was swamped in a few seconds and the crew had to swim to shore. They had emerged, dripping, nearly half a mile from the

disaster. A locomotive stood on the track near at hand; its engineer volunteered its services, and a moment or two later was whistling encouragement to the man clinging like a bit of wreckage to the pile, while the life-savers dropped down from the cab and made for the beach.

Captain Griesser took in the situation at a glance. He motioned the ablest of his men, Surfman Greenland. Ropes were pro