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she had overlooked nothing, and her gaze rested upon a framed photograph of Grace and Joan which hung near the door.

“Well, Grace,” she said, “I've done my best to give him back to you. It’s up to you, now. I never meant to take him, old thing. The whole business was the sheerest accident. The full moon and everything combined. You’re a lucky girl. He’s no hero. my dear; he’s just a man—the sort of man I’ve never found for myself. Mine have all been heroes, damn em!”

She shook her head, and her eyes were wet.

“And, if you’re dead, old thing, put in a word with God for me. I’m going to need it.”

She carried the portmanteau and the cabin trunk out on to the verandah where the carter would see them. She locked the front door carefully and placed the key under the mat.

When she went down the path she was sobbing, thankful for the darkness.

A silent crowd of people, completely blocking the side-walk and overflowing into the roadway, swayed ceaselessly in front of the offices of the Taranaki Herald. James Harley elbowed his way into it without apology, unaware of the roughness with which he thrust men and women alike from his path, intent only on reading the scribbled bulletins from the earthquake area which were pinned upon a felted board in a small lighted window.

Those whom he elbowed took little notice of him beyond snapped words of instinctive remonstrance. They had no capacity for resentment in this tragic hour. Like Harley, most of them were wrapped in their anxiety for friends and relatives; for in this thinly-populated country families drift widely apart—but seldom out of ken—intermingling and marry-