rst made him love her, she had been pleased when he called her his
"beautiful tigress." She had kissed him for the name, and said that of
all animals she adored tigers; that she believed she had been a tigress
once; and when they were rich--as they would be some time--he must buy
her a splendid tiger skin to lie on. This very day the tigress thought
of her had been in his heart, but not as a loving fancy. She had seemed
to him cruel and terrible as a hungry animal despising her mate because
he fails to bring her prey as food. He had said to himself in shame and
desolation of soul that she had never cared for him really, but only for
what he might give; and because he had disappointed her, giving little,
she hated and would perhaps leave him, to better herself. Now the touch
of her shoulder against his breast, and the tired, childlike tucking of
her head into his neck, warmed his blood that had run sluggishly and
cold as the blood of a prisoner in a cell. New courage flowed back to
his heart. Vague thoughts of suicide flapped away like night-birds with
the coming of light. If Eve cared for him still he had the incentive to
live.

"That place seems to haunt us," she murmured, as they stood together in
seeming love and need of one another. He knew what she meant. Their eyes
were on the distant glimmer of Monte Carlo. "Its influence follows us."

"From here the lights look pure white, like the lights of some
mysterious paradise, seen far off across the sea," Dauntrey said.

"No," his wife answered; "to me they're more like the light that comes
out of graves at night time; the strange, phosphorescent light of
decayed, dead things. We've done with that lure light forever, haven't
we?"

"I suppose so!" A sigh of yearning and regret heaved his breast, under
the nestling head. "If you're going to be kind to me again, Eve, I can
do anything and go anywhere."

"Good!" she said in the soft, purring tone which had made him think of
her as a beautiful tigress, when their life together lay before them. "I
_will_ be kind, very kind, if only you'll prove that you really love me.
You never have proved it yet."

"Haven't I? I thought I had, often--to-day, even----"

"Oh! don't let's go back to that. I can't bear to think of it. We
weren't ourselves--either of us. If I was cross, forgive me, dear."

"I deserved it all," he said, pressing her against his side. "Now you're
making me a man again."

"You must be a man--a strong man--