woman who had been his wife as if
he wished to efface it, would look at it for hours, and then throw
himself down on the netting and sob like a child as he looked at the
infinite expanse before him, seeming to see their lost happiness, the
joys of their perished affections, and the divine remembrance of their
love, in the monotonous waste of green waters. And he tried to accuse
himself for all that had occurred, and not to be angry with her, to
think that his grievances were imaginary, and to adore her in spite of
everything and always.

And so he roamed about the world, tossed to and fro, suffering and
hoping he knew not what. He ventured into the greatest dangers, and
sought for death just as a man seeks for his mistress, and death passed
close to him without touching him, perhaps amused at his grief and
misery.

For he was as wretched as a stone-breaker, as one of those poor devils
who work and nearly break their backs over the hard flints the whole
day long, under the scorching sun or the cold rain; and Marie Anne
herself was not happy, for she was pining for the past and remembered
their former love.

At last, however, he returned to France, changed, tanned by exposure,
sun, and rain, and transformed as if by some witch's philter.

Nobody would have recognized the elegant and effeminate clubman, in
this corsair with broad shoulders, a skin the color of tan, with very
red lips, who rolled a little in his walk; who seemed to be stifled in
his black dress-coat, but who still retained the distinguished manners
and bearing of a nobleman of the last century, one of those who, when
he was ruined, fitted out a privateer, and fell upon the English
wherever he met them, from St. Malo to Calcutta. And wherever he showed
himself his friends exclaimed:

"Why! Is that you? I should never have known you again!"

He was very nearly starting off again immediately; he even telegraphed
orders to Havre to get the steam-yacht ready for sea directly, when he
heard that Marie Anne had married again.

He saw her in the distance, at the Theatre Francais one Tuesday, and
when he noticed how pretty, how fair, how desirable she was,--looking
so melancholy, with all the appearance of an unhappy soul that regrets
something,--his determination grew weaker, and he delayed his departure
from week to week, and waited, without knowing why, until, at last,
worn out with the struggle, watching her wherever she went, more in
love with her than