“You sent these back to me,” said Kimberley.  “Will you take ’em now?  My lord, my lord, marry lady Ella to the man she loves, and take these for a wedding gift.  I helped to torture her.  I have a right to help to make her happy.”

Windgall was as wildly agitated as Kimberley himself.  He recoiled and waved his hands.

“I—­I do not think, Kimberley,” he said with quivering lip, “that I have ever known so noble an act before.”

“If I die,” said Kimberley in a loud voice which quavered suddenly down into a murmur, “everything is to go to Lady Ella, with my dearest love and worship.”

Windgall caught only the first three words; he tugged at the bell-pull, and sent for a doctor.

An hour afterwards Kimberley was in bed with brain fever.

On the following morning Jack Clare stood in the rain on the deck of the steamship Patagonia, a travelling-cap pulled moodily over his eyes, watching the bestowal of his belongings in the hold.

“Honourable Captain Clare aboard?” cried a voice from the quay.  A messenger came and handed Jack a letter.  He saw with amazement that it bore the Windgall crest.

It was a hastily written note from the earl stating that circumstances had occurred which enabled him to withdraw his opposition to the union of Clare with Lady Ella.

* * * * *

Kimberley recovered.  He can speak now to Clare’s wife without embarrassment and without pain.  Has he forgotten his love?  No.  He will never love again, never marry; but he is by no means unhappy or solitary or burdened with regrets.  And he knows that those for whom he made his great sacrifice have given him their profoundest gratitude and sincerest friendship.

The ways of the world are various and many.  And along them travel all sorts of people.  Very dark grey, indeed—­almost black some of them—­middling grey, light grey, and here and there a figure that shines with a pure white radiance.

* * * * *

FRANK NORRIS

The Pit

Frank Norris, one of the most brilliant of contemporary American novelists, was born at Chicago in 1870.  He was educated at the University of California and at Harvard, and also spent three years as an art student in Paris.  Afterwards he adopted journalism, and served in the capacity of war correspondent for various newspapers.  His first novel, “McTeague,” a virile, realistic romance, brought him instant recognition.  This was followed in 1900 by “Moran of the Lady Betty,” a romantic narrative of adventures on the Californian Coast.  In 1901 Norris conceived the idea of trilogy of novels dealing with wheat, the object being an arraignment of wheat operations at Chicago, and the consequent gambling with the world’s food-supply.  The first of the series, “The Octopus,” deals with wheat raising and transportation; the second, “The Pit,” a vigorous, human story covers wheat-exchange gambling, and appeared in 1903; the third, which was to have been entitled “The Wolf,” was cut short by the author’s death, which occurred on October 25, 1902.

I.—­Curtis Jadwin and His Wife