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 talking in this way?" exclaimed Chatteris abruptly. "I am simply trying to elevate the whole business by dragging in these wider questions. It's justification, when I didn't mean to justify. I have to choose between life with Adeline and this woman out of the sea."

"Who is Death."

"How do I know she is Death?"

"But you said you had made your choice!"

"I have."

He seemed to recollect.

"I have," he corroborated. "I told you. I am going back to see Miss Glendower to-morrow.

"Yes." He recalled further portions of what I believe was some prepared and ready-phrased decision—some decision from which the conversation had drifted. "The need of my life is discipline, the habit of persistence, of ignoring side