Could they be destined, he and she, to witness the closing chapter in
the long, painful, glorious Book of Evolution? Slightly he shivered
and glanced round.

Till he could adjust his reason to the facts, could learn the truth
and weigh it, he knew he must not analyze too closely; he felt he must
try not to think. For _that_ way lay madness!

Far out she gazed.

The sun, declining, shot a broad glory all across the sky. Purple and
gold and crimson lay the light-bands over the breast of the Hudson.

Dark blue the shadows streamed across the ruined city with its
crowding forests, its blank-staring windows and sagging walls, its
thousands of gaping vacancies, where wood and stone and brick had
crumbled down--the city where once the tides of human life had ebbed
and flowed, roaring resistlessly.

High overhead drifted a few rosy clouds, part of that changeless
nature which alone did not repel or mystify these two beleaguered
waifs, these chance survivors, this man, this woman, left alone
together by the hand of fate.

They were dazed, fascinated by the splendor of that sunset over a
world devoid of human life, for the moment giving up all efforts to
judge or understand.

Stern and his mate peered closer, down at the interwoven jungles of