save at odd moments the man with the beautiful mustache. Marie, the old housekeeper, was as careful of her as Jacques was of her father. Ben was kind to her, though during the latter years he had grown a bit out of her life. This had worried the father--this and other things. One day he had called her into the library, and though he was greatly agitated she saw that it was not in the usual way. "Little girl," he said, "if it should so happen that you are ever left alone here with Ben and he--he does not seem to act quite himself, I want you to promise me that you will go to this address which I shall leave for you." She had promised, knowing well to what he referred. Then his face had hardened. "There is still another thing you must promise; if at the end of six months he is no better I wish you to promise that you will not live in this house with him or anywhere near him--that you will cut off your life utterly from his life." "But, Dada--" "Promise." She promised again, little thinking that the crisis of which he seemed to have a foreboding was so near at hand. A dark day came within two months when her soul was rent with the knowledge that he lay stark and cold in that very library where so much of his life had been lived. Marie gathered her into her arms and held her tight. She stared aghast at a world which frightened her by its emptiness. At her side stood Ben, his lips twitching, and in his eyes that haunting fear which always foreran the father's struggles. A month later the boy did not come home one night, but came after three days, a feeble wreck of a man. She tore open the letter the father had left, and this took her to Barstow, with whom he had evidently left instructions. That was five months ago, and in the meanwhile she had grown from a very young girl into a woman. This was the sombre background to her frightened thoughts as she lay in her bed next to Marie. In the midst of all the figures which haunted her, there stood now one alone who offered her anything but fearful things--and he was a stranger. Out of the infinite multitude of the indifferent who surrounded her, he had leaped and within these few hours made her debtor to him for her life, and now for partial relief from a strain which was worse than sudden death might have been. In spite of other torments it was like a cool hand upon her brow to know that out in that chaos into which the boy had plunged, this other had followed. She had perfect confidence in him. After all, it is as easy in a crisis to pick a friend from among strangers as from among friends.