my breath and leaned forward, while great beads of perspiration started out all over me. "Annette," I exclaimed, springing up, "for God's sake""Chester is on a ship coming across the ocean.

... I have

seen him." (She named the vessel.) "Meet him at the wharf next Wednesday, tell him to return by the next steamer to our daughter, whom he has deserted in France."

She was gone with the words.

Cursing myself for a fool to allow my nerves to get into a condition where they might play me such tricks, I staggered to the gas-jet and turned the light on at full blaze. Then I tried to reason myself into a state of mind where I could admit the vision to have been an hallucination. So determined was I to disbelieve the evidence of my senses in this instance, that I had an uncomfortable shock next morning when, on taking up a newspaper, I saw announced in flaring headlines an account of Annette's tragic death. She had left the theatre at eleven o'clock in a cab, which had collided with a street-car; she had been thrown out and instantly killed.

For days thereafter I was haunted with the suggestion that I must comply with the request conveyed in what I still doggedly persisted in calling a dream; but so at variance was a serious interpretation of it with all the experiences of my life that I resisted until Wednesday morning, when, realizing that the ship was due at noon, I was seized with an unaccountable impulse to verify Chester's presence on it. I do not remember that I was at all startled or surprised to see him, four hours later, descend the gang-plank—and this notwithstanding the fact that his appearance was so altered that ordinarily I should not have recognized him. He made his way straight through the throng and grasped my hand. Neither of us spoke, but I turned at last with blinded eyes to lead the way to my carriage. He seemed to take it as prearranged that he should follow the course of conduct laid out by me.

"Fred," he said that evening after dinner as we sat together before the fire in my library, "you did not need to tell me that Annette was dead. I felt her presence near me the other night—unless I am going mad again, as perhaps I am. Nevertheless, I knew that she was dead."

"You used to say, Chester, that there is no death in the sense in which the term is commonly understood."

There was a silence.

"I know I did; I know I did. But I have reached a point where I can't distinguish between glimpses of the life beyond and a fearful trickery of the mind. . . . My cursed egotism ruined her life. She warned me, you warned me, everybody warned me.

. . .

I don't know now whether you are

a man or a cloud, and it seems to me that there is nothing left of me but my hands." He rose suddenly and went about the room gesticulating frantically.

"Chester," I went over to him, placed a hand on his shoulder, and looked squarely into his eyes,-"Annette came to me the night she died."

Slowly, with wide-opened, startled eyes, he pushed me to arm's-length.

"You-you-you who never believed?"

"Even I. . . . She came to me. I am perfectly convinced of it."

"It is true, then, though you did not believe? . . . Tell me now; it is not all a madman's fancy. You saw her. and. . . and"

He looked at me with strained, beseeching earnestness. "Yes, I saw her. She told me to meet you at the ship; she said you were not to continue the journey you had in mind, but to return by the next steamer to your daughter, whom you had deserted."

He continued to look at me. Slowly his arms dropped to his side, and gradually, as he grew pale, that unnatural look died out of his eyes. I led him like a little child to a chair, into which he sank, covering his face with his hands. Soon he grew more calm.

"Fred, I thank you. My life has been a series of tragic mistakes. I felt that if there is nothing beyond, few things matter; if there is, I might still be able to fight my way better there. I suppose there is some wise reason why it is not to be. I intended to settle some matters here which would have secured my daughter a competence. Then," he

wrung my hand, "I purposed taking my life."

EXPLANATION, AND AMENDE TO MR. NIELS GRÖN.

IN THE ARENA for July an article appeared entitled "Points in the American and French Constitutions Compared," by Niels Grön.

Late in the year, the editor of THE ARENA received from Mr. John Joseph Conway, editor of The Daily Messenger of Paris, a letter in which he alleged that the article in THE ARENA by Mr. Grön had been written by himself; that Mr. Grön had obtained possession of it and had published it under his own name without Mr. Conway's permission.

Acting upon this information three paragraphs were inserted in THE ARENA for December, under the title, "How to get an Article into a Magazine." In this Mr. Grön was represented as having purchased from Mr. Conway an article which he offered under his own name to THE ARENA, thus putting himself in the character of a plagiarist. Soon afterwards the editor of THE ARENA received from Mr. Grön a letter written from London in which he denied the charge made by Mr. Conway and requested a retraction. Since that date I have called upon Mr. Conway for the letters of Mr. Grön bearing on this subject. I find that Mr. Grön did procure an article from Mr. Conway some time in 1896, and that he used the facts contained in that article in preparing his contribution which was published in THE ARENA; but the evidence does not show that Mr. Grön plagiarized the article from Mr. Conway or from anyone. It shows that he used the Conway paper as a study in the preparation of his contribution; but there is no evidence to show that the Conway article was copied by Mr. Grön or improperly used in the preparation of the contribution published in THE ARENA. Mr. Grön is therefore entitled to the disclaimer which he makes, and this explanation and amende is made by THE ARENA to the end that Mr. Grön shall not be disparaged unjustly by our former publication.—EDITOR ARENA.

"You used to sense in Ther "I }

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THE BEAUTY OF A BOND

Twould seem that The St. James cette has let a bird fly.

When such a

goldite empire is phenomenal thing oc

It is not often that an organ of the caught off guard.

curs, one is led to believe that the organ on the night before

has had too much wine

That The St. James Gazette could so

forget itself makes us astonished.

interests of trade."

5 per cent.

simple.

of issue.

The St. James Gazette, doubtless in the

The occasion of the extraordinary break referred to is the recent assignment to Great Britain of the exclusive privilege government has been unusually anxious to get this loan"in the of taking the Chinese loan without competition. The British state of mind indicated above, divulges the scheme as follows: Let us suppose, in the first instance, that the rate agreed upon be interest in China are taken into consideration. Our procedure would be The Bank of England would invite tenders for £14,500,000 Consols at 2% per cent, redeemable in twenty-five years from the date the sum of £15,950,000. The deficiency of £50,000 is insignificant, and least, 10 per cent. Taking the price, then, at £110, we should obtain the a be made good by any one of half a dozen obvious expedients. Under this arrangement we should be borrowing £14,500,000 at 21⁄2 per cent, and lending £16,000,000 at 5 per cent. the interest we should disburse (£367,500) and the interest we should receive (£800,000) would be £423,000. every year for twenty-five years at compound interest, it would produce at the end of that term £14,688,000. But the chief matter remains to When we had got all our money back, China would still be stated. remain indebted to us to the full amount of the original advance£16,000,000. This outstanding liability could, at the choice of the Peking Government, either be liquidated in cash or released in exchange for such fixed or other concessions as might seem equitable to both parties.

This would not be exorbitant when the ordinary rates of

The length of the term offered would ensure a premium of, at

The difference between

If this sum

were invested

Let us explain the beauty of this business. The poor laborers of China will be obliged for 25 years to pay to Great Britain, in interest only, $4,000,000 annually without reducing the debt by a single farthing. That is beautiful to begin with. The $4,000,000 will be taken by the English bondholders and loaned to the British laboring men, who will pay another $4,000,000 a year for the privilege of having money enough to buy their groceries. At the end of the 25-year period, China will still owe the British bondholders the $80,000,000 just the same. That is the essential beauty of it. Eight millions a year laid upon the laboring-men of China and Great Britain for 25 years! Two hundred millions of interest in all, and then 80,000,000 of principal just as good as at the start. I have not seen a better example than this of the splendid workings of the international bond system. The only question is how long the laboring-men of the world are going to stand this sort of business. But then The St. James Gazette ought never to have given the thing away!