white face and tangled auburn hair; it is floating down with the current.  People are passing to and fro on the bridge, the clock strikes in the town hall, and the dead body drifts slowly down the red stream far into the shadows of the coming night—­under the bridge, across which the crowd is hurrying, bent on pleasure and business, past the tall warehouses where rich merchants are counting their gains, under the shadow of the big steamers with their tall masts and smoky funnels.  Now it is caught in the reeds at the side of the stream; no, the current carries it out again, and so down the foul river, with the hum of the city on each side and the red sky above, drifts the dead body on its way to the sea.  The red dies out of the sky, the veil of night descends, and under the cold starlight—­cold and cruel as his own nature—­that which was once Gaston Vandeloup floats away into the still shadows.

FINIS