his fraternal responsibility by active medication. "You aren't fit
to read tonight."

"Good night, Jim," she said suddenly, stopping before him.

"Good night, Mag." He kissed her with protecting and amiable
toleration, generously referring her hot hands and feverish lips to
that vague mystery of feminine complaint which man admits without
indorsing.

They separated. Jim, under the stimulus of the late supposed
robbery, ostentatiously fastening the doors and windows with
assuring comments, calculated to inspire confidence in his sister's
startled heart. Then he went to bed. He lay awake long enough to
be pleasantly conscious that the wind had increased to a gale, and
to be lulled again to sleep by the cosy security of the heavily
timbered and tightly sealed dwelling that seemed to ride the storm
like the ship it resembled. The gale swept through the piles
beneath him and along the gallery as through bared spars and over
wave-washed decks. The whole structure, attacked above, below, and
on all sides by the fury of the wind, seemed at times to be lifted
in the air. Once or twice the creaking timbers simulated the sound
of opening doors and passing footsteps, and again dilated as if the
gale had forced a passage through. But Jim slept on peacefully,
and was at last only aroused by the brilliant sunshine staring
through his window from the clear wind-swept blue arch beyond.

Dressing himself lazily, he passed into the sitting-room and
proceeded to knock at his sister's door, as was his custom; he was
amazed to find it open and the room empty. Entering hurriedly, he