He knew!  He put his fingers on her cheek, her neck, the shining braids of her coarse black hair.  Then he walked quickly out of the house, out of the village, toward the desert.

Two men joined him.  One of them said:  “I have just died.”  They went on together, their feet whispering in the sand, walking in a globe of darkness until the stars came out—­then they saw one another’s pale faces and eager, frightened eyes.  Others joined them.  And others.  Men.  Women.  A child.  Some wept and some murmured and some laughed.

“Is this death?”

“Where now, brother?”

Grimshaw thought:  “The end.  What next?  Beauty.  Love.  Illusion.  Forgetfulness.”

He clasped his hands behind his back, lifted his face to the stars, walked steadily forward with that company of the dead, into the desert, out of the story at last.

COMET [Published originally under title, “The Comet.”]

By SAMUEL A. DERIEUX

From American Magazine

No puppy ever came into the world under more favourable conditions than Comet.  He was descended from a famous family of pointers.  Both his mother and father were champions.  Before he opened his eyes, while he was still crawling about over his brothers and sisters, blind as puppies are at birth, Jim Thompson, Mr. Devant’s kennel master, picked him out.

“That’s the best un in the bunch.”

When he was only three weeks old he pointed a butterfly that lit in the yard in front of his nose.

“Come here, Molly,” yelled Jim to his wife.  “Pointed—­the little cuss!”

When Thompson started taking the growing pups out of the yard, into the fields to the side of the Devants’ great southern winter home, Oak Knob, it was Comet who strayed farthest from the man’s protecting care.  And when Jim taught them all to follow when he said “Heel,” to drop when he said “Drop,” and to stand stock-still when he said “Ho,” he learned far more quickly than the others.

At six months he set his first covey of quail, and remained perfectly staunch.  “He’s goin’ to make a great dog,” said Thompson.  Everything—­size, muscle, nose, intelligence, earnestness—­pointed to the same conclusion.  Comet was one of the favoured of the gods.

One day, after the leaves had turned red and brown and the mornings grown chilly, a crowd of people, strangers to him, arrived at Oak Knob.  Then out of the house with Thompson came a big man in tweed clothes, and the two walked straight to the curious young dogs, who were watching them with shining eyes and wagging tails.

“Well, Thompson,” said the big man, “which is the future champion you’ve been writing me about?”

“Pick him out for yourself, sir,” said Thompson confidently.

After that they talked a long time planning for the future of Comet.  His yard training was now over (Thompson was only yard trainer), and he must be sent to a man experienced in training and handling for field trials.