The Man Who Meddled With Eternity

last the events of the foregoing hour came flooding back into his brain. The long wait as he lay upon the couch, his life ebbing away, his heart failing, the cold of death creeping up his limbs. Then the arrival of his former friend; his own soul's leap tiger-like upon him; the conflict as they seemed to fall grappling together through the outer darkness--he lived through it all once more as he stood gazing by turns upon his own shrunken body and at his new image in the glass.

And now one thought alone took definite and immediate shape. The old drab, lonesome life, the old helpless, hungering years of sorrow, were ended. At last the barrier between him and the woman he worshipped was swept away. He was free to go to her now as swiftly as his feet could take him. Her love was his: his strong arms would soon be round her, his kisses thick as rain upon her lips. She would be his for all time now, his only; and neither life nor death should ever part them more.

The pale face, looking out upon him f