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excursions while he put the finishing touches to stories.

Yes, he decided, Grace had been on the beach when the shake occurred. She could not possibly have been anywhere else.

There had been no whisper of a tidal wave, such as usually follows a bad shake on the seaboard. The sea had receded, according to all accounts, completely draining the inner harbour and forcing the shipping in the bay to scurry for deep water.

Grace and Joan were alive, and he would find them! They would be scared, no doubt, but safe. When he found them again no other woman should part him from them so long as life lasted, so help him, God!

It did not occur to him that Grace might not want him. Harley was all a man, never doubting his desirability where the mother of his child was concerned.

A nearer view of the BIuff renewed his misgivings for a brief moment.

Supposing Grace had walked along the beach to the north!

All that part of the beach beneath the cliffs now lay buried beneath thousands of tons of rock. The once perpendicular cliffs were now precipitous slopes, over the brinks of which several houses hung precariously. No living thing which had been upon the road, or upon the beach at that spot, could possibly have survived. Assuredly, cars and trucks and their human freight must lie buried, many feet deep, under the terrible slope of rubble, for the road was widely used. But the beach———

No! Grace was a lover of her kind, and few people walked beneath the cliffs. He would find her on the beach, somewhere opposite the Masonic Hotel. He would almost stake his life on it.

He could not restrain his impatience to begin the search. He fidgeted ceaselessly in his seat, increasing Roy’s suspicions of his sanity; and, when the