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progeny? Was this passion for Patricia but a transient mating call? He could not believe it. It was too terrific to be that. It was the attraction of like to like, the hand of the Creator repairing His shattered handiwork, the adjusting of an eternal pattern of perfection.

His marriage with Grace had been a mistake. She had, indeed, caught him before his eyes had been fully open. She had but herself to blame———

Oh, hell! Where was the sense in seeking justification for the mistakes of a power beyond mortal control?

The letter was posted. The thing was settled. Let the world say he had chosen wrongly—what did it matter? What comprised his world, after all? A thin circle of friends, consciously righteous, and a handful of editors who would shake their heads at his ‘folly’ and welcome the publicity. What did he care for it?

Nothing.

Pat was his Heaven. He was going to her. The world could go to perdition for all he cared.

For a man en route to Heaven, James Harley was singularly lacking in appreciation of his path. His gaze was upon infinity beneath the ground upon which he walked, and he saw nothing of the sun-splashed suburban houses on either hand, nor of the blue of the sky, nor of the sheen of the Tasman Sea visible between the trees straight ahead, nor of anything which was really worth looking at on this delightful summer afternoon, until he reached the junction of the road with the main thoroughfare to town.

There a voice greeted him with a low, “Jimmy!” and he raised his head incredulously, the blood suffusing his drawn features.