A child of three or four was playing in the tall grass among the nodding buttercups and daisies. I watched her as she played. She seemed a fit companion of the flowers, this sweet babe. I longed to feel the touch of her little fingers on my face.

But as I advanced to where she was playing I stopped abruptly with the sense of sudden chill. My heart even grew cold.

Was I having a vision, was it an intuition of the future—or was this a meaningless phantom!

I had been reading of late a modern philosopher whose translator had made much use of that somewhat ghostly word. Perhaps that was what had given rise to this inexplicable thing. For as I stood there watching the child there flashed across my consciousness a changing vision of her destiny.

It was terrible.

It struck me that it might be better if she could be taken now while innocent and sweet.

I caught myself back from the act of judging life and death.

I had been the momentary victim of a freakish fancy.

I gazed at the child again, and I saw a strange thing, as clearly as I see you now.

She, a young woman, was standing amidst scattered wilted flowers, with parted lips and wide horrified eyes. It seemed a land far off, some land under the burning sun.

She cried out, a cry of anguish. She was there to hide from herself and tortured by the memory of what she once had been.

I saw her again, this time on the sea, still trying to escape from herself, from the tyranny of her lost innocence.

And then I saw her in a rapid succession of scenes, again and again—gambling places, drinking,—sometimes listless and distraught—sometimes forced and eager—with wonderful, costly jewels. But they were too heavy. The price of them was weighing upon her soul.

Then a grave, alone under leaden skies of some Northern country. No flowers now, only the moaning wind—the cold rain.

I lifted the child in my arms and kissed her.