§ 1

It was all like a picture some painter of an old and obvious school might have done. First, there was the port, with the white ships riding at their moorings in the blue sea. Then grayish white Marseilles, with its two immense ribbons, the CannebiÈre running northward, and the Rue de Rome and the Prado intersecting it. The great wooded amphitheater rising like a wave and little Notre Dame de la Garde peeking like a sentry out to sea. And eastward from the quays were the little jagged islands the Phenicians knew, If, and Rion, Jaros, strange un-French names ... the sunshine yellow as a lamp, and the sea blue as flax, and the green woods, and the ancient grayish white city—all a picture some unimaginative painter would have loved. Next to Belfast, Marseilles was to Shane Campbell a second home. There it was, like your own house!

Obvious and drowsy it might seem, but once he went ashore, the swarming, teeming life of it struck Shane like a current of air. Along the quays, along the CannebiÈre, was a riot of color and nationality unbelievable from on board ship. Here were Turks dignified and shy. Here were Greeks, wary, furtive. Here were Italians, Genoese, Neapolitans, Livonians, droll, vivacious, vindictive. Here were Moors, here were Algerians, black African folk, sneering, inimical. Here were Spaniards, with their walk like a horse's lope. Here were French business men, very important. Here were ProvenÇals, cheery, short, tubby, excitable, olive-colored, black-bearded, calling to one another in the langue d'oc of the troubadours, "TÉ, mon bon! Commoun as? QuÉzaco?"

And the bustle of the shops and the bustle of cafÉs, until Shane was forced to go out to the olive-lined roads to the rocky summit of La Garde, and once there, as if drawn by a magnet, Shane would enter the chapel in the fort, where the most renowned Notre Dame of the Mediterranean smiles mawkishly in white olive-wood. After the blinding sun of the Midi, the cool dark chapel was like a dungeon to him, so little could he see anything; but in a while the strange furniture of the place would take form before his eyes: the white statue of the Virgin, the silver tunny-fish, the daubs of sea hazards whence the Virgin had rescued grateful mariners, the rope-ends, the crutches.... And though none might be in the chapel, yet it was full of life, so much did the pathetic ex-votos tell.... And he would come out of the chapel, and again the Midi sun would flash in a shower of gold, and he could see the blue Mediterranean, pricked with minute lateen-sails, and the grayish town beneath him, so old and yet so vital, and the calm harbor, with the forest of spars, and Monte Cristo, white as an egg....

A queer town that, as familiar as a channel marking, teeming as an ant-hill, and when darkness came over it, and he viewed it from the after deck, mystery came, too.... For a while there was a hush, and around the hills gigantic ghosts walked.... One thought of the PhocÆans who had founded it, and to whom the CannebiÈre was a rope-walk, where they made the sheets for their ships.... And one thought of Lazarus, who had been raised from among the silent dead and who had come there, so legend read, a gray figure in ceramic garments, standing in the prow of a boat....

One thing Robin More had told him remained in his mind and captured his fancy, and that was that Pontius Pilate had been governor of Marseilles after his office in Judea. And of him Shane would think when the mysterious dusk came on the Midi hills ... Pilate, who had smiled, "What is truth?" and who had turned Christ over to the mob.... A big man, he imagined the Roman to have been, with clever eyes, and a great black beard covering a weak chin.... A man who knew all the subtleties of mind, and had no backbone.... And he could see the Roman, sitting on his villa porch in the dusk with tortured eyes, and fingering his beard with fingers that shook.... Paul was going through Greece and Rome like a flame, and the Pilate wondered.... Could it have been possible?... Ridiculous! a Jewish carpenter! A crazy man!.... And yet.... Could it have been possible.... No! no! no! And yet.... People had seen Him walk on the waves.... But people never knew what they saw, exactly.... No! How foolish!... He raised a man from the dead they said.... And that centurion—what was his name?—his daughter!... No, a stupid Jewish legend.... And yet.... Could it be possible? Could it? Could it?

"Lights! Lights! Do you hear me! Bring lights! Lights!" Pilate would all but scream, panic-stricken in the Midi dusk....

To Shane Campbell Marseilles had been all this for two years while he journeyed from Liverpool for silk and scented soaps—a landmark familiar as the Giant's Causeway, a strange, motley human circus, a veil behind which hid gigantic ghosts.... Until he met La Mielleuse on the road to Aix.

§ 2

For six years now, since the day they had buried his wife in the green divots of Louth, women had been alien to him. It was not that he hated them, not that he was uncomfortable among them; but the thought of close mental or spiritual or physical contact with them put him in a panic, as one might be in a panic at the thought of contact with some Chinaman, or Eskimo. The women of the better class in ports importuned him, but he passed with a grave humorous smile and an unexpected courtesy. His friends' wives or acquaintances could get nothing out of him but a grave answer to any questions they might put, so that they characterized him as a stick. And at home in Ulster, whither he went after occasional voyages, where Robin More still drowsed over his books; where Alan Donn still hunted and fished and golfed, haler at five and fifty than a boy in his early twenties; and where his mother sat and did beautiful broidery, dumbly, inimically, cold as a fish, secretive as a badger, there he would meet the women of the Antrim families, women who knew of the disaster of his marriage, and they would look approvingly at his firm face and smiling, steady eyes, and they would say: "A man, thon! He could be a good friend. You could trust him, a woman could." They were unco good folk, Antrim folk.

For the peasant girls around he had always a laugh and a joke. And for the young girls from school he had always a soft spot in his heart somehow, appreciating them as one appreciates the first primrose or a puppy dog playing on the lawn or the lark in the clear air. There came such a current of beauty and freshness from them.... New from the hand of the Maker.... They were pausing now, as the wind pauses on the tide.... And in a little while the world, the damned world!... And so he treated them with a great gravity, answering their questions on geography, telling them what an estuary was, and what the trade-winds, and how a typhoon came and paused and passed: and how jute and grain and indigo were taken from Calcutta, and of the Hooghly, the most difficult river in the world to navigate, and of the shoal called "James and Mary".... And they listened to him with wide-open, violet eyes....

And there were two women, Leah Fraser, a slight woman with hair smooth and reddish like a gold coin, and eyes that thought and saw back of things, and slender, beautiful hands, and she moved with the dignity of a swan.... And there was Anne MacNeill, who handled a horse as a man would, and was a great archer—she could shoot as far as Alan could drive a golf-ball with a spoon.... Shane could always see her, a Diana on the greensward, leaning forward, listening to hear the smack of the arrow on the target.... And both these women were his good friends, the thought of them filling his mind like sweet lavender.... But when they were each alone with him, and a little silence would come, then panic would fall on him, and he would make an undignified escape from their company proffering any old excuse.... And they would watch him go, with little twisted smiles.... Poor Leah! Poor Anne!

All the love in him, that some sweet, gracious woman should have had, was anesthetized, or it was deflected, perhaps, to the great three-masted schooner he was now owner and master of, a beautiful boat that had been christened the Ulster Lady, and came from the yards at Belfast, taking the water as nobly as a swan. From truck to keelson there was no part of her imperfect; from stem to stern. Barring a little tendency to be cranky before the wind in a seaway, nothing better sailed. Jammed, or on the wind, she was like a hare before the hounds, so quickly did she go. Her slim black body, her white, beautifully set sails—not a strake or an inch of canvas on her that he did not know and love. And more thought was given by him to the proper peaking of a spar and the exact setting of a leech than to the profits of the cargo. It was like having one's own country, and his cabin aboard was like his own castle—the little stateroom with the swinging-lamps, and the compass above the fastened bed, the row of books, the Aberdeen terrier, Duine Uasal, who slept peacefully on the rug, and who would go on deck and sniff the wind like a connoisseur.... And there was a manuscript poem of his father's in the Irish letter, Leaba Luachra, "The Bed of Rushes," which he had discovered and had framed. And there was a prized thing of his boyhood there, a dagger the Young Pretender wore in his stocking, and he in Highland dress, as he swung toward London with pipe and drum. Alan Donn had given it to him, and he after getting it on a visit to Argyll. "Not only is it Charlie's, but it's a nice handy thing, thon!" ... A beautiful piece of work it was, perfectly balanced, keen as a razor, with a handle of the stag's horn.... It was the only weapon Shane had, and about it curled romance and the smoke of dead, royal hopes.... A bonny, homy place that cabin, peaceful as a garden of bees, when the water slipped past the beam. It was like a warm hearth-fire to come down there after a strenuous time on deck while the sou'wester crashed on the Welsh coast. Or in the roll of the Bay of Biscay, after a space watching the swinging fields of stars, to come down there was to drop into a welcoming circle of friends, to throw one's self down and pick up a book, the Laureate's "In Memoriam" or Mr. Thackeray's latest—and to glance from the pages of "Henry Esmond" to Prince Charlie's dagger lying peacefully on the desk.... How near! how near!... And up forward the lookout paced, or leaned over the bows, humming in Gaidhlig:

'S tric me sealtuinn do'n chnoc is airde D'fheac a faic mi fear a bhata An dtig tu andiu no'n dtig tu 'maireach? Is mur dtig tu eader gur truagh mar ta mi!

Will you come to-day or will you come to-morrow?
If you never come how piteous for me!
Fhir a' bhata, na horo eile!
Hi horo, fhir a bhata—

All the nostalgia of the Scottish isles was in the minors of that song.... And it was like a lullaby.... And the wind hummed through the rigging.... And underneath was the flow and throb of the immense circulation of the sea.... And overhead the helmsman rang the ship's bell. Tung-tung, tung-tung, tung-tung, tung. And all was well on board the Ulster Lady. And she was his only sweetheart and delight ... until he met La Mielleuse on the road to Aix....

§ 3

The babble of the Greek merchants in the CafÉ Turc at last began to bore him, and hiring a horse and sort of gig he decided to drive to Aix. He had always wished to see the old ProvenÇal capital, but somehow the opportunity had always passed by, or something.... But on this bright September afternoon it seemed such a pity to go back on board ship.... He examined the old white horse with interest.

"Are you sure he'll take me there? You see his—" Shane wanted to say suspensory ligaments, but his French didn't quite go that far—"his legs—"

"But, Monsieur, he has won several races—"

"Well, in that event"—Shane grinned, "K-k-k-k!"

The white horse trotted steadily out the Prado, the Rue de Rome, trotted out in the country, passed Bains de la MÉditerranÉe. A northerdly breeze was out rippling the gulf and giving promise of autumn, and the heavy heat of the Midi had disappeared for the instant. Soon they would be plucking the grapes of Provence. The olive-trees were black on the white road. The white horse trotted on....

There were peasants on the road going into town, and townspeople going out to the country.... And children who insulted one another shrilly.... But the white horse plodded on. On a stretch of level road he passed a pair talking, noting casually that the woman was a lady from her carriage, and from his threatening cringe that the man was a cad. Italian riff-raff of some kind....

"But you are mistaken," the woman was saying. "You are making an error."

The man's reply was low, inaudible.

"But I assure you, you are mistaken."

The white horse plodded on.

"Please, please"—the woman's voice followed Shane, and there was embarrassed fear in it—"please let me pass! You are mistaken."

And then again: "I swear to you ... please ... please!"

The white horse was surprised at a firm pull on his mouth, a crack of the whip, and a turn.... He broke in a lolloping canter.... Shane jumped down....

"Madame, is this man annoying you?"

"Sirvase, Signor—"

But one look at the woman's face was sufficient. Shane turned on the fawning Sicilian with a snarl.

"Get to hell out of here, quick!" The man shuffled off, walked quickly, ran, disappeared....

The great dark eyes had agony in them. Her mouth quivered. Shane knew her knees were shaking as she stood.

"Better get in here. I'll drive you home." He helped her into the trap. "I ought to have held that fellow," he grumbled. "Marseilles? No! Oh, Les Bains! We'll be there in a minute. You're all right now, Madame."

"He mistook me—for—somebody else—" She had a voice deep and sweet as a bell, but there was a tremor in it now—a marked accent of fear, past, but not recovered from.

He was aware of a great vibrant womanhood beside him, as some people are aware of spirits in a room, or a mother is aware of a child. He was aware, though he hardly saw them, though he didn't know he saw them, of the proud Greek beauty of her face, so decisively, so finely chiseled, so that it seemed to soar forward, as a bird soars into the wind; of the firm, dark ellipsis of the eyebrows; of the mouth that quivered, and yet in repose would be something for a master of line and color to draw; the little hands that plucked nervously at the dark silk gown, unquiet as butterflies. Her eyes, he knew, were wide with fear, great black pupils, deep, immensely deep. And he was aware, too, of something within her that vibrated, as a stay aboard ship vibrates in a gusty, angry wind, or as an ill-plucked harpstring will vibrate to and fro, unable to stop.

"I live here, Monsieur."

It was a little white villa, with green jalousies such as the Midi has in thousands. He pulled up, and she was down before he could help her. Her face was quiet now but for the tremor of her eyes.

"Thank you ever so much," she said.

"But this man, Madame. Are you safe? Ought not one to—the police?"

"It was nothing, Monsieur." She laughed, but her voice still quivered. "Some good-for-nothing who took me for some one else, whom he had seen somewhere else, and knew—something—about. Nothing at all, a bagatelle, that might happen to any one. But I thank you so much! You were going somewhere?"

"To Aix, Madame."

"But your horse is lame!"

"So he is, poor old boy! I hadn't noticed."

"Then—adieu, Monsieur. And thanks again."

He drove back to town. "I shall never get to Aix," he thought. "Perhaps I shouldn't go.... Some fate...." At the livery post he got down and examined the horse's fetlock.

"So you won several races, eh?" But the white horse seemed to shake its head. "No! Oh, well, no matter, old codger!" And he stroked the long lugubrious muzzle....

And thus, casually as he would light a match for his cigarette, casually as he would stumble over something, casually as he would pick up a book, he met La Mielleuse on the road to Aix....

§ 4

For days now he had been aware of her presence in Marseilles without thinking of her—aware of her as he was aware of the HÔtel de Ville, or of the Consigne, as of the obelisk in the Place Castellane. These things were facts, had their place, and she was a fact. She had become imprinted on his memory as on a sensitive plate. So one dusk on the Prado, as he met her, he was no more surprised than if, in their appointed places he had come across the obelisk or the Consigne or the HÔtel de Ville.

She was standing looking out to sea, and the little wind from Africa blew against her, and made her seem poised for flight, like a bird.

And because he saw no reason why he shouldn't and because he was direct and simple as the sea itself, he went to her.

"Are you a sea-captain's wife?"

"No, Monsieur." She seemed to know him without turning. Perhaps she recognized his voice.

"I saw you looking out toward the Pharo. I thought perhaps you were waiting for some one to come home on a ship."

"No," she said slowly. "No. I—I come here some dusks, and look out to sea. There is something. It seems to pull me. The great waters and the blinking lighthouse—I seem to stand out of myself. And miles and miles and miles away there is a new land with a new life where one might go ... and begin.... What is in me seems to struggle to go out there, but it never gets more than an inch or so outside. But even that.... And the wind ... so clean. Are you a sailor?"

"Yes, I am a sailor."

"It is very beautiful and very pure, the sea?"

"Yes, sometimes it is very beautiful. I think it is always beautiful. And it must be pure—I never thought.... It is strong, and sometimes cruel. It heals, and sometimes it is very lonely. One never quite understands. It is so big."

"Yes, so big and strong ... and it heals. One seems, one's self, one's little cares, to be so little."

And they were silent for a while.

"But perhaps I intrude, Madame. Your husband——"

"My husband is dead in Algiers these six years."

"I am sorry."

Everything was hushed, the tideless sea, the silent wind. Behind them, and still about them, hung the strange dusk of Pontius Pilate. Before them blazed Marseilles.

"You are married?"

"I was married."

"Then your wife is—dead?"

"Yes, Madame, she is dead."

"You grieve?"

"No, I do not grieve."

"Did you not love her?"

"I loved some one I thought was she. It wasn't she."

There was another instant's silence as they walked.

"Ah, I think I understand," she said. And they walked into the blaze of the city. She paused for a moment.

"Will you pardon me for asking things like that? I don't usually.... But in the dusk I seem to be another person...."

"No. In the light we are other persons."

"Ah," she smiled understandingly. "You are going to your ship now?"

There was a finality in her voice. It was more an affirmation than a question.

"Madame," Shane said, "will you please let me see you to your door?"

She looked at him for an intense second, and a little cloud of—was it fear?—flitted across her face.

"Madame, there are thieves and villains of all kinds abroad. You have had one experience. Please let me protect you from a possible second."

"If you wish." She smiled. He called a carriage.

In the light she was a different person. Along the sea-shore walking in the dusk, she was a troubled phantom, a thing of beauty, but without flesh, without the trappings of clothes—as if a spirit had been imprisoned in cold white statuary. But now she was a beautiful woman, gravely gay, a woman of the world, not of the great world, perhaps, and not of the half-world—just a woman aware of and experienced in life. And poised.

"You are English?"

"Not English. Irish."

Poised she was, but she was like a player playing a game, and the breaks against her. He knew the smile. He had seen it often on Alan Donn's face, playing in some of the great title matches. Four holes to go, and he must better par. It's all right, the smile said; there's nothing wrong. But in Alan Donn's was the glint of a naked knife, and in this woman's eyes, down deep, veiled, but ill concealed, was appeal.

They stopped at her house. He helped her out.

"Adieu, Monsieur. And again a thousand thanks."

"C'Était un vrai plaisir!"

"Monsieur!"

"Madame!"

The cabman looked surprised when ordered to return. He turned and regarded his fare with amazement.

"Quai de la FraternitÉ," I said.

"Hup, alors!" The cabby shrugged his shoulders. And they trotted ploddingly through the dusk of Pontius Pilate to the burning cloud which was Marseilles....

§ 5

He knew he should meet her again, and where he should meet her, and he did, on the Prado. He knew when. In the Midi dusk. A touch of mistral was out, and the wind blew seaward. She was sitting down, looking toward Africa.

"You oughtn't to come out here alone," he said. "Marseilles is a bad port."

"I know," she said. "I know. But it draws me, this spot. You leave soon?" she asked.

"In a few days."

"But you will be back."

"Yes, I will be back," he told her. "I don't know why, but I think I'd rather die than not see Marseilles again. It is a second home, and yet I know so few people here."

"If one has the temperament, and conditions are—as they should be—Marseilles is wonderful."

"One could be happy here."

"Yes," and she sighed.

The spell of the archaic dusk came on him again; a dusk old as the world. About them brooded the welter of passion and romance that Marseilles is. Once it was a PhocÆan village, and hook-nosed Afric folk had stepped through on long, thin feet. And then had come the Greeks, with their broad, clear brows, their gray eyes. And further back the hairy Gauls had crept, snarling like dogs. And Greece died. And came the clash of the Roman legions, ruthless fighting hundreds, who saw, did massive things. And Rome died. And over the sea came the Saracens, their high heads, their hard, bronzed bodies, their scarlet mouths. And they conquered and builded and lived.... And were hurled back.... Years hummed by, and passion died not, or romance, and it was from Marseilles that a battalion had come to Paris gates singing the song that Rouget de Lisle had written in Strasburg:

Allons, enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivÉ.

And passed that day, and came another, when a handful of grizzled veterans left the gates to join their brothers and meet the exiled emperor.... Passion and romance! Their colors were in Marseilles still.... Over in Anse des Catalans weren't there the remains of the village of the sea-Gipsies, who had come none knew whence?... And along the gulf there were settlements of Saracen blood—les Maures, the ProvenÇals called them ... and the shadow of Pontius Pilate wild-eyed in the dusk....

"It's strange"—her voice came gently to him,—"but I can hear you think."

"And I can feel your silence," he said. "Just feel—you—being silent—"

The wind whipped up, grew shrill, grew cold. She shivered in her thin frock.

"You are becoming cold."

"I am cold."

"Then hadn't you better go home—to your house?"

She rose silently. It seemed to him somehow that she had put herself under his care. She was like some gentle little craft that had anchored humbly under the lee of a great ship. He felt somehow that she was a thing to be protected. He hailed a carriage, and she made no protest—all the time under his lee, so needful of protection. It was a shock when they came into the lights of Marseilles to find a proud, grave woman there and not a shrinking, wide-eyed child.... Her face, poised for flight, like a bird's wing; the beautiful, half-opened mouth, the hands, the little feet in their shoes. She was like some beautiful shy deer. And somewhere hovered disaster, like a familiar spirit.... And yet she was smiling....

At the door he made to bid her good-by.

"Would you—would you care to come in?"

"Why—why, yes." He sent the carriage away.

He followed her up the path to the little villa and with her entered the house. There were no servants to answer the door; she let herself in with a latch-key, but so scrupulously clean was the place, so furnished in its way, that there must have been servants somewhere. The living-room into which she conducted him was spacious and a little bare, though not bare for the Midi—a plain white room, high in the ceiling, with chairs of good line. Here was a big piano, here a fireplace, here a few paintings, colorful landscapes, on the wall. Together they lit candles.

"Back of here is a garden," she said, "where I spend most of the day. And I have a cook"—she smiled—"and a maid who waits on me. And yet I go out to walk on the Prado...."

Shane wasn't surprised. It wasn't home, somehow. The room was like a setting in a play, here light, here shadow.... The paintings, the instrument of music, the chairs, they were not things owned and loved. They were properties.... In the golden candle-light, as she moved, she was like an actress of great restraint. Every step, posture, gesture seemed to have an occult significance. Even her bedroom, away off somewhere, he felt, was not a place where one slept easily and dreamed. It would be like the dressing-room of some woman mummer.... It was all like a play, of which he was seeing a fragment from the wings.... What was it all about? Who was she? And why was his heart a-flutter?

She had taken off her hat, and her hair was coiled close about her exquisite head. White and black, regular, significant, antique—like a cameo of some Greek woman, long dead. She stood by a little table, one hand on it, the other like some butterfly against her gown.... It was like a pose—but unconscious, he knew, utterly unconscious....

"Tell me," she said, "why did you speak to me?"

"I don't know," he said, "I just spoke."

"You weren't"—her words were weighty, picked—"looking for a flirtation with a pretty woman?"

"Why, no. Of course not," he answered. "I never thought—"

"No. No, you didn't." She decided for herself.

She came toward him suddenly in the candle-light. Stood before him.

"Tell me, who are you? What are you?" There was a tragic appeal in her face. "Where do you come from? Where are you going?"

"I don't know." His throat was dry, his heart pounding. "A few days ago I was a contented man, unhappy but contented. And now I don't know."

"And I don't know who I am." Her mouth quivered. "I am two people—three people."

They looked at each other with a sort of agony, as though they had lost something dear to each, and to both of them. They were immensely intimate. He put out his hand....

"Poor ... poor...."

Their hands touched, and there seemed to rush between them, through them, some powerful current; and how it happened he did not know, but they were kissing each other.... He thought with a queer shock, was a woman's mouth so soft, so sweet, so vibrant? He hadn't known. And was he kissing her? And how had it happened? It was impossible!... Or was he dreaming?... Or was he—was he dead?...

She released herself from him for an instant, putting her hands on his shoulders, her eyes looking into his eyes....

"What is your name?"

"Campbell. Shane Campbell."

"Campbell. Shane Campbell. Shane—Shane Campbell. Mine is Claire-Anne—Claire-Anne Godey."

§ 6

It seemed to him as he went to Les Bains that next evening that the world had somehow changed into another dimension, so much clearer the air was, so much brighter the stars.... He had discovered a higher, more rarefied stratum of life, in the dim, keen atmosphere of which things took on incomparable beauty and mystery, so that the water on his left hand, unseen, yet so blue, was not the Gulf of Lyons, but the whole Mediterranean, which washed Genoa and Naples and Sicily, and the little islands of the Greeks, and the barbaric shores of Africa, Morocco, and Algiers; and Gibraltar, where the English were, like an armed sentry in a turret. The ships in the harbor were not ships of commerce, but stately entities, each whispering to each in the shush-shush of water and wind, telling of the voyages they had made, adventurous as sturgeons. Even from the mud-and-rush huts along the sea-shore came the note of brave romance. And the softly singing trees! And in the great amphitheater of the woods no longer the shade of Pontius Pilate gnawed his bitten nails, but more gallant presences were, gray-eyed Greek women, with proud composed faces and eloquent hands, and Saracens calmly awaiting the morrow's battle, and troubadours puzzling keenly for a rime.... They were not colored thoughts, but sentient presences. Spirit and thought had united in him into a being like a bird, leaving the earth, and flying into a realm of ancient forgotten beauty, spirit being the will, and thought the vibrating wing.... How harmonious everything was, the stars, the earth, the sea, the people! How clear it had all become! How one!...

He came to her in her garden where she sat beneath a tree. Around, the cicadas whirred in the speaking trees. Zig-zig-zig-zig. But they were no longer strident. They seemed but a vibration of the high atmosphere in which he was....

"Claire-Anne! Claire-Anne...."

"Yes ... yes, lover...."

"Claire-Anne!"

She stood up as he took her lovely, pale hands. There was no shame to her glance, nothing but a wonderful frankness, her eyes going to his like brave winged things.

"Claire-Anne, I want to ask you something."

"Yes ... Lover...."

"Claire-Anne, when will you marry me?"

Her hands never quivered, but he was aware that her mouth did, in the high diluted starlight.

"Why do you want to marry me? Is it because ...? Do you feel bound?... or ... just why?"

"I want to be with you, Claire-Anne."

"Then—dearest, does it matter to go before the mayor and arrange about property? And to go before a priest and make promises—to God!... Sit down, lover; sit down with me here, in the dusk, under the tree."

She still clasped both his hands. He might have been talking to some beautiful disembodied spirit, as Pontius Pilate was a poor panic-stricken spirit, or to something he had conjured out of his head, but for her firm, warm hands. To-night it was she had strength....

"Dearest, promises are so easy to make. I have made promises, oh, so many promises!... And life or destiny.... And when you can't keep them, your heart breaks. You know nothing of me—Shane...."

"I don't want to know; I just want you, Claire-Anne!"

"You must know something. I was just a girl, well brought up, well educated.... I dreamed of being a great actress. I was an actress, but I was ... manquÉe ... didn't succeed, get success.... And then I married, and my husband died.... And here I am.... And there are other things you mustn't know.... Not that they are dear to me; oh, no!... but you must never hear them.... O Shane, if seven years ago.... But Destiny or life wouldn't let us. And now we can only cheat him, and that only for a while.... Because Destiny is all-seeing and jealous and cruel.... Only for a while, a sweet while...."

"But, Claire-Anne, I don't understand—"

"Don't understand, don't, my lover. Don't anything.... Only let me give all I have, can give to you, and let me take what you care to give in return, only that.... O Shane, we are two people in a dark wood, and it is lonely and terrifying.... And we have met, and our hands ... se sont serrÉes ... gripped and held.... And we aren't lonely any more, or afraid. And you have a picture in your mind of me, a beautiful, warm picture.... But if the night passed, and we came to the meadow-lands.... O Shane, don't let's go into the light—not into the open, not into the light.... Oh, no! no!"

"But, Claire-Anne...."

"Come closer, Shane. The night is empty. There are only we two in the world.... Come close. Closer. Closer still...."

§ 7

He was sitting in her garden one sunset, under the mulberry-tree, and she had gone into the house for a minute, moving with the firm, gracious walk of hers that was like the firm swimming of swans. In the little hush of sunset, and she gone, there came a sudden knowledge to him.... For a space of time, how long he knew not, he was in an Antrim study.... Without, the sun had gone down, and there was the purple, twilight water, and the gentle calling of the cricket.... And within was a gray head that had fallen on a book ... fallen ... fallen as the sun went down.

"Why, Uncle Robin!" he called.

Then came a great gush of tears to his heart and eyes....

She came from the house, as again he became cognizant of the Midi garden instead of the Antrim glen, of the Mediterranean instead of the waters of Moyle. She came down the dusky pathway. At a little distance she saw his face. She stopped short, her face white....

"Shane! Shane! what is wrong? Are you hurt? Ill?"

"My Uncle Robin is dead, Claire-Anne."

She looked at him for a little instant, not quite understanding. She came to him swiftly as a swallow. She sat close beside him. Her arm went through his. Her hands clasped his hands.

"Why didn't you tell me, heart?" she whispered.

"I just knew this instant. I felt, saw.... We were that close ... my Uncle Robin! Beannacht De ar a anam! God's blessing on his soul!"

She never spoke. She never stirred. She hardly breathed. She was just there, her hands, firm and strong, on his, did he want her.

"Was it ... a hard death, Shane?"

"No; I seemed to see him, asleep, among his books."

"His books were his friends ... you told me....

"Yes, dear. His life was with them."

"And he wasn't a young man, your Uncle Robin?"

"Eight and sixty years of age."

"Is it so ill, heart, to go quickly, quietly, with your friends about you, on an autumn afternoon?"

"No, dear, not ill. Very rightly ... I think. But there is something.... Something is gone from the world, like a fine tree from a garden.... And he was awful' dear to me, my Uncle Robin.... It will be a hard thing to go home, and he not there to come and ask: 'Are you all right, laddie? You're no sick?' Claire-Anne, I'll be thinking long...."

She sat with him in silence in the garden, and after a little while got up and went without a word.... And he sat in the garden thinking to himself, had he been lax to Uncle Robin in any way? He might have written oftener. It wasn't fair to have kept the old man worried and he an apprentice at sea. Yes, he could have written, could have written oftener. And thought more. And there were books he might have brought the old man—books from 'Frisco and New York and Naples. The book-stores were so far from the quays, and he had put it off. And he could have so easily.... When one is young, one is so thoughtless.... A message from somewhere ran into his consciousness like a ripple of code-flags: 'It doesn't matter, dear laddie. Don't be taking on. Don't be blaming yourself. You were the dear lad ... and I'm happy....'

Ah, yes, but a great tree was gone from the garden. An actuality had been converted into thought and emotion, and thought and emotion may be all that endure, and an actuality be unreal ... but an actuality is so warm ... so reassuring....

He rose and went toward the house, and as he walked he met her....

"Claire-Anne, do you mind if I go back to the ship?... Somehow, I'm a little lost...."

"There is a carriage waiting for you outside."

For the first time it occurred to him that in this occult experience she had not uttered one jarring note. She had not asked questions, nor had she tried to argue with him, as other women would have, telling him he fancied all this. Nor had she bothered him with vain, unwelcome sentiment. She had just—stood by, as at sea. And how swiftly she had divined his need of privacy, of his own ship!

"There are none like you in this world, Claire-Anne," he told her.

"I am what you make me, Shane—what you need of me." Her hand sought his in the stilly dusk. "Come back only when you are ready dearest ... dearest ... I am here! Always here!"

§ 8

Though she never said so, yet he knew she wanted to go on board the ship that was so much of his life, and one day he had her rowed across to the Ulster Lady. He smiled as he saw how firmly she got on board, though ships were unknown to her. Queer, how she never lost dignity, grace. And it was so easy for a woman to look silly, undignified, getting on board ship. She never disappointed him....

She mused over the sweet line of the schooner, the tapering masts, the snug canvas, the twinkling brass. The wake of a passing paddle-steamer made the boat pitch gently. It was like breathing.

"She is so much a pretty lady," Claire-Anne said. "So much like you, Shane, in a way. She might be a young sister—a young, loved sister. And where is your place on board when she sails?"

He pointed her out the space behind wheel and binnacle.

"Whenever there's any need, I'm there, just there."

"And Shane, great waves like you see in pictures—great enormous waves, does she stand those?"

"Yes, great waves, like you see in pictures, she stands those. Drives through them, and over them, and under them."

"And Solomon said"—she was just thinking aloud—"that he couldn't understand the way of a ship on the sea. And he was immensely wise. Dearest ... it can't be just wood and canvas, a ship ... power and grace and beauty.... It's like great people...."

"They're as different as people are, Claire-Anne."

"Are they, Shane? I knew they weren't ... just things."

He took her below in the dusk of his cabin. She filled the space like some gracious green tree.

"And here is where I live on board ship."

The Aberdeen terrier came forward to greet her, his tail waving gently, his ears up, his brown eyes grave and warm.

"Duine uasal! Duine uasal!" she knelt to him.

"You remember?" He minded he had told her casually of the dog's name.

"Of course I remember! Shane, what does Duine uasal mean?"

"Gentilhomme," he translated.

"He has the eyes," she said.

The framed manuscript of his father's verses caught her eyes, and she looked at him in inquiry.

"What is it?"

"A poem of my father's, in Gaidhlig, Claire-Anne. 'The Bed of Rushes.'"

"How queer the letters are! Slim and graceful, and powerful, too. Would you read it, Shane?"

"Leaba luachra," he read, "a bed of rushes, bhi fÚm arÉir, was beneath me last night, agas do chaitheas amach É le banaghadb an lae, and I threw it out with the whitening of day. Thainic mo chÉad grÁdh le mo thaobh, my hundred loves came to my side; guala ee qualainn, shoulder to shoulder, agas bÉal re bÉal, and mouth to mouth."

"Now I know you better, Shane."

"How, dearest?"

"I know how you come by your—your sense of beauty, Shane. It's from your father. You have it just as he had. But he could say and you can't, Shane. You have it, but it doesn't come out that way. It comes out in the sailing of the ship, Shane. You must sail beautifully. Shane, I should love to see you sail."

With a quick movement she dropped on her knees, and her beautiful dark head on the pillow of his bed.

"Couldn't you take me with you once, Shane, when you sail? Away on just one voyage?"

"Of course I could, dearest, and will."

"Would you, my heart? Would you?" She stood up again, and swift tears came to her eyes.

"I couldn't come," she said.

"But, Claire-Anne—"

"No," she said. She turned her back to him, so that he shouldn't see her face, and her voice vibrated. "No, Shane dear. No. You go to sea and sail your ships, and take care of them in the tempest and coax them in light weather. And go from port to port, watching the strange cities and the peoples, and seeing into them, with ... tes yeux d'enfant ... your eyes of a child.... And have your life, free, big, clean.... And just in a corner ... le plus petit coin ... keep me ... so when you come to Marseilles, you will come up the garden path in the dusk, and call, 'Claire-Anne!'" There was something like a sob from her. "Just say, 'Claire-Anne'...."

She turned around and caught his hands for a minute, looked at him, smiled, laughed.... From his desk she picked up the Young Pretender's dagger.

"What is this for, Shane? Is this yours?"

"Mine now, Claire-Anne; but it was—some one else's once. My Uncle Alan, Alan Donn, gave it to me."

"Yes?..."

"It belonged once to Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender. He wore it at his knee in '45. Do you remember, Claire-Anne? He landed in Scotland and advanced on England, and got as far as Derby at the head of the Scottish clans and Jacobite gentlemen. 'Black Friday' they called it in London."

"But he never got to London."

"No, he never got to London. Crash and whir of battle, and when the smoke cleared, there were the gallant Highland clansmen scattered, and the sturdy English nobles, and the bonny Irish gentlemen. And a king on the run!"

"And, Shane, what happened to him after that?"

"I think—my history may not be right, but I think he spent the rest of his life a pensioner of the king of France, playing petty politics, drinking, and accepting love from romantic women, and loyalty from the beaten clans."

"What a pity, Shane! What a pity!"

"That he failed, dearest? I don't know."

"Not that he failed, Shane! No! The most gallant fail, nearly always fail, for they take the greatest odds. But that he lived too long, Shane ... the high moment gone...."

She looked at the dagger again that had once snuggled to Prince Tearloch's knee, hefted it, caressed it.

"Shane dearest, why didn't he use his own knife to—set himself free?"

"I don't know."

"I think I know."

She faced him suddenly.

"Shane, why didn't somebody do it for him?"

"I suppose they couldn't see the end, Claire-Anne. They couldn't foresee the king of France's charity, the tricked women, the wine-stained cards. There's many the Scots gentlemen who would have—set him free."

"But they didn't, Shane dearest. It seems—Destiny must always win. Shane, what is that poem in Gaidhlig about the world, the verses you once said?"

"Treasgair an saoghal, agus tigeann an garth mar smal.
Alaistir, CÆsar, 's an mÉad do bhi d'a bpairt
Ta an Theamhair na fear agas feÂch an Traoi mar ta—
Life goes conquering on. The winds forever blow
Alexander, CÆsar, and the crash of their fighting men
Tara is grass, and see how Troy is low—"

He stopped with a little shock, for her face was a mask of tears.

"Dearest, dearest, it's only an old, sad story. It has nothing to do with us. Claire-Anne—"

"Is any story old, Shane? Is any story ever new? Isn't it always the same story?"

She looked at the dagger for an instant more, and put it down with a little sob.

"Poor gentleman!"

§ 9

From his cabin below he could hear the Belfast mate roaring at the helmsman:

"What kind of steering do you call that? Look at your damned wake. Like an eel's wriggle. Keep her full, and less of your damned luffin'."

"Keep her full, sir!" the steersman repeated.

"Look at your foretopsail! Bouse it, blast ye! Bouse it! You Skye cutthroats!"

If the nor'easter held, Shane calculated, he could run through Biscay full, come into the Mediterranean on a broad reach, and jam her straight at Marseilles. About him was the tremor as she took the head seas. Plunge! Tremble! Dash on! Overhead the squeaking of the sheets, the squeal of blocks, the thrap-thrap-thrap of the lee halyards, the melancholy whining of the gulls. With luck he would be in Marseilles within the week. And if the wind swung westward after he left Gibraltar to port, he would nip off hours, a day even. And every hour counted until the moment he went up the dusky path and called, "Claire-Anne!"

He had never before driven the Ulster Lady as he was driving her now. Before, he had been content to get what he could out of her, coaxing her, nursing her, as a trainer does a horse he is fond of; but now he was riding her like a jockey intent on winning a race. On deck the crew wondered what had got into the old man, as they called him, for all his twenty-eight years.

"Before, he was a sailor," the isles crew complained. "Is he now a merchant at last? A Righ is truagh! O King, the pity!"

But it was not interest in cargoes that compelled him; it was the thought of a face like the wing of a bird, ready to soar. The dark, gracious face, with the eyes where emotion swirled like a mill-race, the parted ruddy lips-La Mielleuse—mouth of honey. And the word he must not say aloud, like some occult word of magic until a certain moment should come:

"Claire-Anne!" Just "Claire-Anne!"

Before he had left Marseilles he had not been able to think of her, to weigh what happened, to understand. Things were too close. But at sea, and in the dusk of the Antrim glen, and in Belfast and Liverpool, he had had time to view the incident in perspective; to stand aside, as one stands back from a picture, and appreciate the color, the line, the truth; to see that that rich purple, that splash of orange, that rippling, rich silver-gray are not spots like flowers, but a definite design....

In Antrim he had remembered Dancing Town, the vision of Fiddlers' Green. Fourteen years before!

And now that he remembered, it seemed to him foolish not to have known he was sailing somewhere. He was always sailing.... And unexpectedly, after he had given up all hope, under his lee bow had risen suddenly Fiddlers' Green.... Once before he thought he had made port there, but that only made this island the true one.... For there were always two things, and the second was right.... False dawn and dawn; the False Cape and Cape Horn; the Southern Crosses, the false and true....

And he would tell her this, when he met her again, of how he had been thinking, and discovered her to be the true life....

The wife he had married and buried seven years before he thought of now; she was the second woman he had known, his mother the first. And from the cold precipice of his mother he had fled into the flinty fields of Moyra Dolan.... He felt a little sorry for the boy he was seven years before—so young, so gallant, so wrong.... He had thought that all there was in life was a home to return to, a wife, children.... He had wanted an acre of land in the sun, where all the world was his. When one was young, one knew so little.... Wisdom came with the lapping of the waves, and years of quiet thinking under the gigantic stars.... A plot of land he had wanted then, and now he had the stars, they belonging more to him than to the astrologers who conned them, the fields, more than to the tillers who cultivated them, the sea than to the fishermen who trawled.... He was one with everything, understanding everything, its immense harmony.... From hard earth and wet sea he had arisen on swift, dark pinions until he had been one with the spirit that infused all earth and sea and sky holding the multitudinous atoms in One with immense will and scheme.... And it was she who had given them to him—Claire-Anne ... the wings of the morning.... The flutter of her white hands ... the eyes that looked and drooped, looked, drooped ... the little catch in her breath....

His life opened before him now, like a fair seaway. About his appointed tasks he would go in his appointed life ... sailing ships with needed cargoes ... a despatch messenger for the peoples of the world over the vast solitudes of sea ... doing his work well and willingly ... and asking no reward but that the bird of dusk, the mouth of honey, be his to love and be loved by ... to melt with and be one in occult alchemy of soul and mind and body ... to get strength and knowledge, and the understanding which is more than strength and knowledge....

He was twenty-eight, she was twenty-five. There were twenty years before them still, twenty years of love and understanding, and then a strange happy twilight, like the dusk of Antrim, that gives way hardly to the short night.... Some day she would marry him and come to his house ... some day when something that was wrong in her heart was righted and forgotten, something he had no wish to intrude upon, so closely did she conceal it.... There was a locked, haunted room in her heart ... poor heart!... but one day the presence would be exercised, and the room swept and garnished.... Some day she would marry him, and he would bring her home to Ulster.... And who better than she could understand the springy heather and the blue smoke-reek, the crickets of the evening and the curlew's call? And in the house where his mother was cold and arrogant, would be a warm and gracious lady ... Claire-Anne!...

God! he was thinking long to be in Marseilles again, to go up the dusky path, to call, "Claire-Anne!"

The big Belfast mate larruped down the short companionway.

"How's she doing, Mr. McKinstry?"

"She's doing fine, sir. If I may say so, there's not a better boat sails the water, not the Sovereign of the Seas itself. Nor a better crew to handle things, not on board the king's yacht."

"Nor a better mate, Mr. McKinstry."

"Ah, well, sir; we do wir best."

He tumbled on deck again, and Shane could hear him roar from amidships:

"Lay forward, a couple of you damned farmers, and see if you can't get more out of those jibs. Faster! faster! You're as slow as the grace of God at a miser's funeral.... If I only had a crew...."

§ 10

She stopped in her swift flight to him through the dusk of the Midi garden.

"Dearest, why is your face so white? Your hands bruised?"

"The consul said something to me—about you—and I knocked him down."

"Oh!" she said, a shocked little cry, and: "Oh!" a drawn-out wail of pain. "Why did you strike him?"

"Because he lied about you."

Her face was turned from him, in the dusk of the crickets, toward the wooded amphitheater, where dead Pontius roved wild-eyed in the dusk, where Lazarus tossed uneasily in his second sleep, where the Greeks lay in alien soil, and the shadows of Roman legionaries looked puzzled at the flat sea, not recognizing busy Tiber—her back was to him, her head up in pain, her nerve-wrenched hands uneasy, white....

"He didn't lie," she said at last. "Oh, you'd have known it sooner or later. No! no! He didn't lie."

"Claire-Anne!"

"He didn't lie. I was just a fool to think—oh, well, he didn't lie. No, no!" she repeated. "He didn't lie." She threw out a hand hopelessly. "He didn't lie."

He went up to her in the dusk, put his hands gently on her shoulders. The quivering frame became still suddenly, with a greater nervousness. She was like a deer ready to bound away....

"I don't see what I could have done, Claire-Anne. But—can I do anything now?"

She turned toward him suddenly. Her face was a mask of pain—and surprise.

"Then you haven't grown cold to me, unmerciful, ... or gross?"

"Why, no, Claire-Anne!"

"And you know."

"I—know, but I don't understand...."

She gave a queer, little shuddering cry, half laugh, half sob. She moved over to the seat by the whispering mulberry-tree, and dropped in it, her hands covering her face.

"All the wrong," she said, "that people call wrong I've done I didn't mind. But the one decent thing—of loving you—that's kept me awake all the time you were away. It's been like a sin, letting you love me. The rest was destiny, but this one thing was—I."

She suddenly raised her face, her eyes shining through the humid mask of it.

"Would you—could you—understand?"

"Tell me, Claire-Anne, what you want to."

She drew a short gasping breath, turned her head away, looked up, turned it away again, paused for breath, gripped his hand by the wrist....

"I ... I ... I was the child of actors, and they died, and there was enough money to bring me up and educate me, and give me my chance on the stage.... And I wasn't good enough.... I was too much myself. Couldn't quite be other characters. I don't know if you understand.... But ... then a man got infatuated with me and married me.... And later he wished he'd married a—comfortable woman with a fortune.... And then he died and left me ... not very much.... But that was not the reason.... I was left, how do you say?... stranded. I had no career, no husband, no child, no business. France, it is not easy ... not easy anywhere.... Friends? People are too busy.... And I was ... just there.... And all around me life bubbled and flowed, and I was ... not dead, not alive ... and alone ... I might have been a leper, but even lepers have colonies, and some one to be kind to them ... not dead, not alive ... and alone. I was so young.... It was unfair. Life was everywhere like a sparkling wine ... but where I was, was flat....

"And then—then I met a man ... it was pleasant for a while—to have some one to talk to, to go around with. It's so pleasant to laugh. You don't know how pleasant until you haven't laughed for a long time.... He didn't want to marry ... and in the end it was a choice of—oh, well ... or going back to being not dead, not alive ... and I couldn't go, just couldn't. And he gave me presents of money.... And then he got married. I don't blame him ... a comfortable woman with a fortune ... but I wasn't left for long.... Where one goes, others always follow.... There's a sort of ... sentier intuitif, a psychic path....

"And I wasn't so ashamed ... I was a little glad I had a place in the world ... a work even.... And every one might despise me.... I had a place.... I was no longer not dead, not alive.... I was even thankful for that.... Until I met you with your—terrible courtesy, with your understanding.... My head and my heart melted, and my body, too, and all had been so firm, so decided.... And I dreamed that I could snatch a while from destiny.... But—you see.... What the consul said was true, so ... dearest—but I mustn't ever call you dearest again."

"Claire-Anne!"

"Well, then—dearest, you see why I couldn't marry you when you asked." She laughed bitterly. "If you had only known...."

He took a terrible grip on himself, faced her, looked at her.

"Claire-Anne, will you marry me now?"

"I don't know why you say it, but I know one thing: you are true. And I thank you ... but please don't make me cry any more. I have cried so much when you were away.... If only five years ago before I was ... estropiÉe ... crippled....

"Destiny...."

§ 11

Dusk had gone; darkness had come, and now darkness itself would leave soon, for the third quarter of a great saffron moon showed its edge in the eastward. Marseilles was like the pale light of a candle. And a great palpable darkness had settled like water in the hollow of the woods.

"Dearest"—her voice took sudden strength—"will you forgive me? I don't say that just as if I'd done a small wrong. But will a big power come out of your heart and say: 'It's all right, Claire-Anne. I understood.' It will be so much for me to know that—in the days when you are gone—"

"But, Claire-Anne, I'm not gone—"

"You must go, dearest. You must go now. Don't you see?" Her voice grew gentle. "You couldn't stay any more. It wouldn't be like you, somehow. And I wouldn't have you spoiled in my eyes ... darling, you could never be ... but you must go...."

"And you, Claire-Anne—"

"Destiny ... a long, lean finger ... a path...."

"But you never know—"

"We know, we poor women, Shane. We know.... Shane, don't you understand ... what makes the ... girl in the archway, the emperor's mistress, drink, take ether ... do strange horrors?.... They know.... And they want to escape from seeing it ... for an instant even ... the terrible story of the Belle HeaulmiÈre ... the 'Armorer's Daughter':

"Ainsi le bon temps regretons
Entre nous, pauvres vielles sotes,
Assises bas, À crouppetons,
Tout en ung tas commes pelotes,
A petit feu de chenevotes
Tost allumÉes, tost estaintes:
Et jadis fusmes si mignotes!...
Ainsi emprent À maintes et maintes.

"Do you understand, Shane, do you understand? So we regret the good old times, poor old light women, gathered together like fagots, and hunkering over a straw fire, soon lit, soon out—tost allumÉes, tost estaintes ... and once we were so dainty. To many and many's the one it happens. Pauvres vielles sotes! Poor old light women, Shane.... Et jadis fusmes si mignotes! ... Dainty as I am, they were once.... And do you blame them now when see it coming ... the drink, the ether ... the abominable things...."

"O my God! Claire-Anne!"

"Heart of hearts, Shane. I once escaped to light, where they escape to oblivion.... Once I had you, and all my life I'll remember it.... All my life I'll remember: I once knew a man.... And it will be a help, so much a help...."

"Oh, Claire-Anne, it can't be!"

"It must be, dearest heart. It is—decreed. Darling, sometimes I thought—Do you remember your showing me the poor prince's dagger, and our talking about him—setting himself free—and I said I thought I could understand why he did not.... I've wanted to, myself.... But.... There's a way you're brought up, when you're young.... They put such fear of God in you ... such fear of hell ... you never could—throw things down and go straight to Him, and say: 'I couldn't. I just simply couldn't. I hadn't the strength. I couldn't ... just....' And they never think of Him saying: 'Of course you couldn't.... And it was all My fault. I wasn't looking.... I've so much to think of.... You did right to come to Me....' But, no! no! One fears. They teach you so much fear, Shane, when you are young ... so that even this is better—this—game, where none win.... And so—one goes on...."

She rose suddenly and clutched his shoulders in panic. Her mouth twisted in piteous agony....

"Oh, but dearest, dearest, pauvres vielles sotes, poor old light women.... Shane, assises bas, À crouppetons, in an archway, hoping for a drunken farmer with a couple of sous ... and so cold, so cold, with a little fire of straw stalks ... tost allumÉes, tost estaintes!" ...

"No, Claire-Anne! no!"

"A drunken farmer, or traveling pedler.... Et jadis fusmes si mignotes ... and so dainty once!"

"No!" His voice took the ring of decision. She didn't hear him. Her voice broke into a torrent of sobs.

"Take me in your arms, Shane, once more. And let my heart come into your heart, where it's so warm ... and I'll have something to remember in the days when it will be ... so cold, so cold ... and I'll be there warming old bones.... A petit feu de chenevotes.... Shane, dearest, please...."

He took her in his arms, and her body seemed to be some light envelope in which a great turmoil of spirit beat, as a wild bird beats against a cage.... He could hardly hold her body so much was her tortured sobbing.... So much did what was within wheel and beat, beat and wheel, in unendurable panic. Her voice murmured in his wet shoulder:

"Pauvre vielle sote! O Shane, Shane ... pauvre vielle sote!" ...

§ 12

Above him, to starboard, he could hear the churning of the tug that was to take them from the docks to the open sea. Overhead the pilot was stamping impatiently. Forward the mate was roaring like a bull:

"Where is that damned apprentice? Tell him to lay aft and bear a hand with the warps."

In a minute or so he would have to go on the poop and give orders to let go and haul in. The tug was blowing, "Hurry up...." He ought to be on deck now.... He hated to go up ... he hated to see the last of Marseilles ... he would never see Marseilles again....

Was all ready? Yes, all was ready. Cargo, supplies, sea-chest, everything for the long voyage he had decided—had to decide—on at the last minute. Forward across the Atlantic to where the sou'east trades blew, and then south'ard reaching under all sail—the fleecy clouds, the bright constellations of the alien pole, the strange fish-like birds, the flying-fish, the bonita, the albacore; the chill gust from the River Plate; the roar of the gales of the forties; the tremendous fight around the Horn, with a glimpse of land now and then as they fought for easting—the bleak rocks of Diego Ramirez and the Iledefonsos, and perhaps the blue ridge of Cape Horn, or of the False Cape; then, northward to Callao ... anywhere, everywhere ... new seas, new lands, new cities ... but never again Marseilles....

And he would never see her again, La Mielleuse—couldn't if he wanted to ... never again ... irrevocable.... On that pillow she had laid her head, her dark darling head!... And last night he had seen it for the last time, dark, smiling in sleep, on a snowy pillow.... He remembered as he might remember a strange pantomime.... His going to his coat for—what he had there ... the silent tiptoe ... the gentle raising of her left arm, as she smiled in her sleep ... the sudden weakness at her soft warm beauty ... the decision.... Of course he had done right!... Of course!... Of course!...

Overhead the pilot stamped on the deck in a flurry of impatience. The tug wailed in irritation. He must get on deck....

He threw one last glance around.... He had everything he needed for himself.... Nothing lacking.... His eyes paused for a moment on his desk. Wait! Where was the dagger? Prince Charles's dagger?

He gripped himself in fright. Was he going—had he gone—mad? He knew where that was ... he knew ... he knew.... It was....

"Ogh!" A flash of horror went over him.... But he had done right ... of course he had done right....

"All's ready, sir," the mate called in to his cabin.

"Yes?..."

"Man, you're no' ill?" the mate looked at him, queerly.

"Of course I'm not ill." He swung on deck. "All right? Let go aft, then, and haul in. Tug a little westward: a little more westward. Hard a port, Mr. McKinstry. All right! Let go all, for'a'd.... She's off...."