A few days later they left the coast for AmyÔt and Paris. There was no record left of their visit to Bonaventure save the rough sketch which Loris Loswa had made, and from which he still meant some time, when he should have leisure, to create a great picture. One day Othmar bought the sketch of him at one of those exaggerated prices which Loswa could command for any trifle which he had touched.

When his wife saw it hanging in his room in Paris she laughed.

'You are determined,' she said, 'that I shall not forget my DesclÉe manquÉe.'

'I do not think you were kind to her,' said Othmar.

'I did not intend to be unkind, certainly. She gave me an impression of force, of talent, of a future: the sketch suggests that. But no doubt she has married the shipwright by this time. Little girls begin by dreaming of RÉnÉ and NÉmorin, but they end in making the pot au feu for Jacques Bonhomme.'

'I do not think she will ever marry the boat-builder. I told you that we made it impossible for her.'

'I know you did; but then you have always des billevesÉes romanesques. The steward at St. Pharamond could tell you what has become of her.'

'I have inquired. She has not returned to the island; her grandfather never speaks of her, and no one knows anything at all about her.'

Nadine smiled.

'Ah! you have inquired already? I thought she impressed you very much.'

'Not at all,' said Othmar irritably, as he glanced at the sketch on which the sunshine was falling. 'But I was sorry that any caprice of yours should have cost anyone so dear.'

'Is that all? And you are sure she has not married her cousin?'

'They say not. He is still living at St. Tropez.'

'Then she must be shut up in some convent.'

'Or dead.'

'Oh no, my dear, she had too much life in her to die. Besides, her grandfather would have made her death known. I am sure she will live and have a history, probably such a history as Madame Tallien's or as Madame Favart's. She carries it in her countenance.'

'Five fathoms of blue water were perhaps the better fate,' said Othmar.

'You are very poetic,' said his wife with her unkindest smile. 'I always thought you had a touch of genius yourself, only it never took speech or shape. You are a Dante born dumb.'

'Then you should pity me indeed,' said Othmar, with irritation.

He kept the sketch hanging in the room which he most often used at his house in Paris. It served to retain in his memory that night upon the sea when he had seen the figure of Damaris disappear in the moonlight, amidst the silver of the olive-trees, while the fragrance of the orange-scented air and the breath of the sweet-smelling narcissus were wafted to him from the island pastures out over the starlit waters.

'You will end in falling in love with that picture,' said his wife to him with much amusement. He was angered at the suggestion. His regret for Damaris was wholly impersonal.

'We did her a cruel kindness,' he thought sometimes when he glanced at it. 'Wherever she be, and whatever she live to become, she will always carry a thorn in her heart, because she will always have the sentiment that she might have been something which she is not. It is the saddest idea that can pursue anyone through life. Perhaps she will marry the boat-builder and have a dozen children, but that will not prevent her sometimes, when she sees a fine sunset, or sits in the moonlight on the shore waiting for the sloop to come in, from being haunted by the thought that if things had gone otherwise she might have been in the great world. And then, just for that passing moment, while the ghost of that "might have been" is with her, she will hate the man who comes home in the sloop, and will not even care for the children who are shouting on the beach.'