Far aft, under the waving tricolor, stood the woman of our story.  Her fingers twined carelessly through the glittering necklace thrust into her hand as Percy Reed clambered into his boat, and her eyes rested sadly on an ungainly transport, already freighting with its cargo of mortality for the sacrifice at Humaita.  The golden glow of the harbor was lost in the chilly mist; the bare mountain-tops loomed bleakly through the piles of cloudy haze.  White waves curled dismally at the base of the Pao de Assucar, and the weird shrieks of the sea-gulls on the rocks that jutted around it made the dreariness more desolate.  Far out in the trackless waste the sky lowered gloomily over the weary waters.  Fit emblem of her path through life—­dark was the picture, threatening the surroundings.

Pray for the woman doomed to a calling she cannot but despise!  Pray for the being overflowing with good thoughts toward all mankind, sentenced to “tread the wine-press alone!” God have mercy upon us miserable sinners!

THE END.