The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893

t care. I would gladly have fallen out and lost my life now that I had lost Phillip.

Then Kenneth took from his pocket a large knife and unclasped it. I laughed aloud, for I thought he meant to frighten me into submission. But I soon saw what he meant to do. He climbed up the cordage and cut the valve-line through.

"Now you are conquered!" he cried, "and we will voyage together to the world's end."

I had risen to my feet and watched him, listened to him with a thrill of despair; but even as his triumphant words appalled me the car swayed down upon the side opposite to where I stood--the side where still hung the long line with the grapnel--and I saw the hands of a man upon the ledge; the arms, the head, and the shoulders of a man, of a man who the next minute was standing in the car, I fast in his embrace: Phillip Rutley, my true love, my husband!

Then it seemed to me that the balloon collapsed, and all things melted, and I was whirling away--down, down, down!

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