HE most annoying suspense experienced is usually undergone while one is awaiting the time set for an appointment with somebody who has played a big part in one's life, and whom one has not seen for quite a period. Memories of things said and done surge through the brain-incidents are all there under a new perspective and receiving a merciless

x-ray.

In just such a state of suspense was Robert Hudson, owner of a cocoanut plantation on Basilan, in the southern part of the Philippine Islands. It was nine o'clock at night and he was standing on a little bamboo pier, a lantern at his feet, looking absently across the straits at the string of tiny, bright lights, which marked the comparatively large town of Zamboanga, on Mindanao. Nervously, he would take a pose, then switch into another, or light a cigarette, take a few puffs off it, and toss it into the water. He had been waiting nearly an hour and as yet no sign of the light from a launch headed his way. It was hard to believe it would ever come, anyway, for it was all so preposterous, so impossible! Then, to satisfy his doubts, he would crunch the note he held in his left hand. The time stated in it was half past eight.

Suddenly, with a startling effect, shrilled a voice in Spanish from the shore: "Roberto! Dios mio, what in the names of all your children's saints are you doing out so late? And standing out there like one crazy, with not even a moon to look at! Away all day-never take siestas-and your pobre little wife at home, suffering, but not daring to take off that foolish corset until you come home, because your Americana women wear them!"

It was Donna Pipa, his mother-in-law, big and fat and quarrelsome-the only

one in whom he had never been able to instil the slightest bit of respect. The pier was a half-mile from the house and protected from view by a jut of palmcovered land, so she could not have seen his lantern and must have trailed him. there; and he was in no mood for any of her annoying tricks.

"Pipa," he said hotly, "what business is it of yours where I am at any time? I am going to send you back to Tanuay mañana! I have had enough of you! Anda!"

"But you are always on the porch by eight," she explained, angrily. "Well, I shan't be back at all tonight!" He was thoroughly annoyed.

"Then I shall wait to see what you do, hijo mio!" she said, maliciously. "Awaiting a boat, eh? Some Americana school-teacher from Zamboanga, eh?"

He started toward her, his patience gone, for she must not be there when the launch arrived. Upon his approach she sat her cumbersome frame upon the beach, and, as he towered over her, defied him:

"Now make me go!"
"You go!"

"Oh, you Americanos, always want to go, go, go! Pah!"

At that, he dropped his lantern, seized old Donna Pipa under the arms, dragged her, protesting and calling in the same breath upon the saints, a few feet out on the pier and gently but forcefully shoved her off into about four feet of water.

"Now you'll go!" he predicted.

She came up sputtering but wiser. Muttering all sorts of oaths, she waded ashore and started back along the beach to the plantation-house, stopping ever so often to curse him with renewed energy amid her shuddering-for a refreshing off-shore breeze was blowing. . . . A white man in the tropics must see that his

As the launch approached his eyes remained fixed on the lighted cabin. He swung his lantern once to signal the steersman, whereupon the launch headed directly toward him. He could not see into the cabin, which was aggravating, for he felt that if he could just get a glimpse of her he could control his emotion better when they met and this he must do.

Suddenly the launch swung around broadside and he saw her standing by the cabin door, waiting for the launch to dock.

"Bob! Oh, Bob, it's really you!"

"Yes, Grace, the same old Bob," he replied, his throat seeming to tighten and his heart to beat fiercely as he gave her his hand to help her on to the pier. Then for a few moments they stood looking at each other in the lantern light. Neither could speak, but both smiled and breathed uneasily. Each noticed the changes in the other. To him, she was as striking as ever: clad in a filmy, white evening gown, over which she wore a Chinese jacket of beautiful pattern, she made thoughts of

reached the beach they sat down on that end of the dock, and Hudson ventured, a bit stiffly:

"This is certainly a knock-out surprise, your coming here; I imagined you in the midst of one of Chicago's gayest seasons. A wonder your husband would let you come way out here?"

"I simply told Max I was fagged out and wanted a good, long sea trip," she replied hurriedly. "I knew nothing would or could budge him from his business, with

received my note?" She knew well that he had, but she felt she must make him say something so she could lead the conversation into channels she wanted.

"Yes. It was a bolt from the blue," he answered slowly. "And from it, or rather in it

"I said I had to see you, didn't I?" she interrupted, opening and shutting her fan nervously.

"I didn't know what could be the matter," he said, "what you would come

to me for 'way out here at the end of the world." Their eyes met and hers made him rush on. "Your hour to arrive -eight-thirty at night! It's all been wonderfully mysterious; and, well, I am just so glad to see you! I had imagined you had almost forgotten me.

There was another one of those strained silences. He noticed Grace was staring grimly ahead of her, tapping her knee with her fan. Then in a moment she was on her feet; she glanced quizzically at him several times before she spoke:

"Forget you? ... Oh, Bob!" "Not exactly," he fumbled, a deep emotion sweeping his senses away. He reached out and seized both her hands tightly. Once again they looked into each other's eyes and they saw again that old love, their first love, the love of their youth. Fencing words were out of place; he drew her to him; then, with what almost sounded like a sob, Bob sought her lips, while her arms slipped up around his neck and her pretty little white handsbedecked with Max Deardon's jewelspressed down his head with all of their tiny might, as if she never wished that kiss to end.

There at the end of the world, there on the beach of Basilan, each belonging to some one else she to Deardon, the "big" business success; he to Linda, a little tropic butterfly of the islands-let love reign for one half-minute.

"Bob," she said a moment later, locked in his arms and looking up at him, "I have come for you! To take you awayanywhere! To start all over again, and we will meet to-morrow hand in hand, won't we? Won't we?" she queried, almost pathetic in her intensity.

He did not answer. So this was what she had come for! It staggered him for a moment, and gently he removed his arms from about her. What was his answer to be? Did he want to go? Good Heaven, yes! Slow stagnation had been facing him for two years; the tropics had drowsed him. . .

"Kiss me," murmured Grace.

And as he kissed her a low to-oot came floating in over the waters-some native seaman praying to Mohammed for a stronger breeze; far away down the beach could be heard the distant throbbing of a tom-tom in a Moro village; the breeze

rustled softly in the tops of the cocoanut trees fringing the shore. . .

"But, Grace . . ." he hesitated. Evidently she did not know about Linda and the youngsters. "Isn't it too late?"

"Never!" she said emphatically, now a different woman. "I've plenty of money-oh, not exactly his money-investments made with my allowance. Plenty of it: he gave me a huge allowance. . . . You are unhappy, so am I; we both made mistakes. Don't let's live a mistake simply because of what people might say."

So she knew all about him, he realized. He wondered who could have told her, and she, as if reading his thoughts, explained:

"It was at a dinner, Bob, in Chicago. Somehow the conversation turned to the tropics, and an army officer on my left used you-it nearly killed me—as an example of what the gay, free life in the tropics can do to a man. How, after the scandal in Manila and your discharge from the government service, you took to drink, and went down, down-how you bought the cocoanut farm, where, as he put it, 'Hudson fell for a pretty little native and is going to the dogs.'

"I hardly could say a word during the rest of that dinner party, except carefully to ask him more about you. I felt I was partly to blame; for if I had married you and had been with you-" She paused reflectingly, then continued: "You see I had been one of seven girls, and dad was only a small-town physician; then you and Deardon came along-and Deardon had money, could give me the things I always wanted, but never could afford. . . . Oh, if you had just turned back that evening and asked me once again!" Here she stopped and rested a hand on each of his broad shoulders. "But this old world is made up of ifs, and I'm through with them, and so are you!”

Hudson stepped back. "No, I can't go," he declared, almost desperately.

"But you will!" A woman of passion spoke, a woman who did not care for but one thing-the love of her man.

"I've made two big mistakes," Bob said doggedly, "that affair in Manila and marrying poor little Linda. Now I'm trying to make good, to make the best of things. I won't play the fool again.