* * * * *

After they had eaten Frank said good-bye to Aleta.  He was going back to town.  The feverish adventure of it called him.  And he had learned that there were many other camps of refugees.  In one of these he might find Bertha.  A milk wagon, clattering over the cobblestones overtook him and, without an invitation, he climbed aboard.  Frank had little sense of destination or purpose.  He wanted action.  The thought of Bertha tugged at him now like a pain, insistent, quenchless.  He tried to stifle it by movement, by absorbing interest in the wondrous drama all about him.

Suddenly he sprang from the wagon.  They had reached the park where he had learned of Bertha’s love.  Frank scarcely recognized the tiny pleasure ground, so covered was it with tents and bedding.  It swarmed with people—­a fact which Frank resented oddly.  In the back of his mind was a feeling that this spot was sacred.

He made his way among the litter of fabrics and humanity.  These were mostly people from the valley where a foreign section lay.  Loudly and excitedly they chattered in strange tongues, waving their hands about.  Children wailed.  All was disorder, uncontrol.

Sickened of the place Frank turned to go, but something tugged at his coatsleeve; a haggard, elderly dishevelled man.

Frank looked at the fellow in wonder.  Then he gave a cry and took the fellow by the shoulders.  He had recognized, despite disguising superficialities of garb and manner, Bertha’s once spick-and-span butler.

“God Almighty, Jarvis!” Frank could scarcely speak, his heart was pounding so.  “Wh—­where is she—­Bertha?”

“Come with me, sir,” said the old man sadly.  He led the way past sheet-hung bushes, over crumb-and-paper sprinkled lawns to a little retreat under sheltering trees.  One had to stoop to enter that arbored, leaf encircled nest through which the sun fell like a dappled pattern on the grass.  Frank adjusted his eyes to the dimmer light before he took in the picture:  a girl lying, very pale and still, upon a gorgeous Indian blanket.  She looked at him, cried out and stretched her arms forth feebly.

“Bertha!” He knelt down beside her, pressed his lips to hers.  Her arms about his neck were cold but strangely vibrant.  For a moment they remained thus.  Then he questioned, anxiously, “Bertha?  What is wrong?”

“Everything!  The world!” she whispered.  “When you left me dearest, I was happy!  I had never dreamed that one could be so glad!  But afterward ...  I didn’t dare to face the morning—­and the truth!” Her lips quivered.  “I—­I couldn’t stand it, Frank,” she finished weakly.

“She took morphia,” said Jarvis.  “When the earthquake came I couldn’t wake her.  I was scared.  I carried her out here.”

“You tried to kill yourself!” Frank’s tone was shocked, condemning.  “After Tuesday night?”

Her eyes craved pardon.  She essayed to speak but her lips made wordless sounds.  Finally she roused a little, caught his hand and held it to her breast.