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SAILOR JACK'S REFORMATION.
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the proof of his wrong-doing; then, with a low cry, she sank and would have fallen, but for the timely assistance of the friendly neighbor.
"He's gone/' she moaned. "Gone — and he didn't understand. It was all a — mistake — " The tired form relaxed, the eyelids fluttered, and the little Captain fainted for the first time, at the realization that she was now a deserted wife.
"I'll wait for him," Agnes said from day to day.
"Only waiting till the shadows are a little longer grown." What a world of pathos there was in the beautiful words of the hymn, as Agnes, sitting by the window in the little cottage one day, repeated them to herself. She could not sing them now, for the spirit of song had fled when happiness went out of her life. Now she could only gaze sadly over the sea, thinking always of a storm-tossed mariner sailing, she knew not where, without a pilot Here, by the window, her successor, Captain Mary, and Lieutenant Landers always found her when they came over from the near-by town and brought well-laden baskets of provisions. It would have gone hard with the patient watcher if they had not ministered to her comfort. She had tried to procure sewing from the village, but as her health failed she had been compelled to give up the work, and each week the pale little face seemed to grow thinner, and the dark eyes larger and more pathetic.
Lieutenant Landers had never referred either by look or word to the day of his encounter with Jack. Agnes did not see him often. He was always so busy at the barracks. It was Captain Mary who came most frequentlv to cheer the invalid, and to help fashion the dainty bits of sewing with which Agnes found her only solace.
"I'll wait for him," Agnes still kept saying, altho she was not without admirers.
The southern cross shone out with unusual brilliancy in the clear, tropi
ca* sky. The great ocean lay like a sea of glass, while the moon-beams flooded with an exquisite radiance the decks of the ship on which Jack Martin was working his way back to the States. It was a trip he had never taken before. The calm beauty and grandeur of the scene appealed to him. He remembered that calm night in June, when he had gazed hopelessly into the brown eyes of the sweet-faced Salvation Army lassie, who had softly whispered, "Come."
For a long time he sat on a pile of rope and looked out over the sea. A flying fish sprang high out of the water. How bright and shining it looked in the moonlight and how peaceful everything was ! If only Agnes were beside him. She loved the stillness and solitude. Many the time he had repented his folly. He was thinking of her now. It was almost too intense for Jack. It made him nervous and ill at ease. He wonderel what she was doing at that moment. When would he see her? He tried to reckon the time, but finally gave it up as too great a problem in mathematics.
"A man could do right," he muttered, "if he wras always out in the middle of the ocean. That cross in the sky makes me feel creepy. It looks like the gate of heaven and I — what am I that I dare look upon it?" He hid his face against his arm and shuddered.
Was it the effect of the moonlight,
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WYm
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HE SHIPPED FOR A LONG VOYAGE.