The Mena weekly star., 1913-05-01

venience; the moral significance touched neither her heart nor her mind. In her the primordial craving for ease, for material comforts, pret' ty trinkets and gowns was strongest developed. It was as if this sense had been handed down to her, untouched by contact with progression, from tho remote ages, that time between tho fall of Roman civilization and where modern civilization began. In short a beautiful barbarian, whose intellect alone had advanced.
 Fortune was asleep. The mother went over to the bed and gently shook the slim. round arm which lay upon the coverlet. The child's nature lay revealed as she opened her eyes and smiled. It did not matter that the smile instantly changed to a frowning inquiry The mother spoke truly when she said that there were times when she stood in awe of this, her flesh and blood.
 My child, I wish to ask you a ques tion, and for your own good answer truthfully Do you love Horace?"
 Fortune sat up ard ruhled her eyes. No" Had her wits been less scattered she might have 'palte.cd.
 The syllable had a fnality 10 it that treasured the mother more than thousand protestaticns would have done.
 Good night she said.
 Fortune lay down again and drew the coverlet up to her chin. With her eyes shut she waited but in vfin Her mother disrobed and sought her owr bed
 Rvanne was intensely dissc tiefed with bin' self. For once his desperate mood had carried him too far. He had made too many confessions had antagoniZed a woman who was every bit ns clever and ingenious as him. self. The enterprise toward which they were moving held him simply be- cause 1t was an exploit that enticed wholly his twisted outlook upon life. There was a forbidding humor in the whole affair, too, which he alone saw. The possible rewards were to him of secondary consideration. It was tho fun of the thing, It was the fun ot the thing that had put him squarely upon the wide, short road to perdi' tion, which had made him first spendthrift, then a thief. The fun of the thing; sinister phrase! A thous. and times had be longed to go back, for he wasn't all bad but door after door had shut behind him; and now the single purpose was to get to the end of the road by the shortest route.
 He did not deceive himself His desperate mood was the result of an internal rage against himself, a rage against the weakness of his heart. Fortune Chedsoye. Why had she not crossed his path at that time when he might have been saved? And yet, would she have saved him? God alone knew.
 He heard Jones stirring in his room next door. Presently all became still. To sleep like that! He shrugged, threw off his coat, swept the cover from the stand, found pack of cards, and played solitaire till the first pallor of dawn announced the new day
 Reclining snugly against the para pet, wrapped in his tattered arbiyeth, or cloak, his head pillowed upon his lean arm, motionless with that pre- tended sleep of the watcher, Mahomed- El-Gebel kept his vigil Miles upon miles he had come, across three bleak cold, blinding deserts, on camels, in trains, on camels again, night and day day and night, across the soundless yellow plains. Allah was good to the true believer. The night was chill, but certain fires warmed his blood. All day long he had followed the accursed lying giaour. but never once had he wandered into the native quarters of the city. Patience! What was a day. a week, year? Grains of sand. He 1 could wait. Inshalla!
 Continued in Next Issue)