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 less towards the east with the reflection of the moon suddenly became dark blue, almost black, against the burning dawn.

Micky climbed wearily up to the wireless house, pausing at each step. The mystery of the night was wholly gone. He felt jaded, disgruntled, depressed,—perhaps a bit the way Cloud had felt when he walked sternwards not so long ago twisting his hands. The joy of living had been knocked clean out of him and there was a dull ache in his heart that became a poignant agony of soul as he pressed the electric button in his little office and went over to where the picture of the little girl with the dog was fastened above his bunk.

Whatever might have happened to the real Evelyn in the three years last past, the little girl in the picture had not changed. Under the bushy curls that dung around her shoulders and fell almost to her waist she gazed smilingly out at him, with a glance archly innocent. Micky gave a kind of hiccough and with eyes suffused with burning tears took out his jack-knife and pried the photograph off the wall. Then he opened the drawer of his desk and pushed it under a pile of papers at the back.