of his life now drew madly to a close.

"What do you think of it all?" the woman asked suddenly, gravely, as
though they had been isolated together in the deep spaces of the
same thought.

"I do not yet--Of what?" rejoined Rudolph, at a loss.

"Of all this." She waved an eloquent little gesture toward the
azure-lighted gulf.

"Oh," he said. "Of the world?"

"Yes," she answered slowly. "The world. Life." Her tone, subdued and
musical, conveyed in the mere words their full enigma and full meaning.
"All this that we see."

"Who can tell?" He took her seriously, and ransacked all his store of
second-hand philosophy for a worthy answer,--a musty store, dead and
pedantic, after the thrilling spirit of her words. "Why, I think--it
is--is it not all now the sense-manifest substance of our duty? Pardon.
I am obscure. '_Das versinnlichte Material unserer Pflicht_' No?"

Her clear laughter startled him.

"Oh, how moral!" she cried. "What a highly moral little griffin!"

She laughed again (but this time it was like the splash of water in a
deep well), and turned toward him that curiously tilted point of chin
and mouth, her eyes shadowy and mocking. She looked young again,--the