sands, but they had not made many steps when Mrs.
Travers perceived an oblong mound with a board planted upright at one
end. Mrs. Travers knew that part of the sands. It was here she used to
walk with her husband and d'Alcacer every evening after dinner,
while the yacht lay stranded and her boats were away in search of
assistance--which they had found--which they had found! This was
something that she had never seen there before. Lingard had suddenly
stopped and looked at it moodily. She pressed his arm to rouse him and
asked, "What is this?"

"This is a grave," said Lingard in a low voice, and still gazing at the
heap of sand. "I had him taken out of the ship last night. Strange," he
went on in a musing tone, "how much a grave big enough for one man only
can hold. His message was to forget everything."

"Never, never," murmured Mrs. Travers. "I wish I had been on board the
Emma. . . . You had a madman there," she cried out, suddenly. They moved
on again, Lingard looking at Mrs. Travers who was leaning on his arm.

"I wonder which of us two was mad," he said.

"I wonder you can bear to look at me," she murmured. Then Lingard spoke
again.

"I had to see you once more."

"That abominable Jorgenson," she whispered to herself.

"No, no, he gave me my chance--before he gave me up."

Mrs. Travers disengaged her arm and Lingard stopped, too, facing her in
a long silence.

"I could not refuse to meet you," said Mrs. Travers at last. "I could
not refuse you anything. You have all the right on your side and I don't
care what you do or say. But I wonder at my own courage when I think of
the confession I have to make." She advanced, laid her hand on Lingard's
shoulder and spoke earnestly. "I shuddered at the thought of meeting you
again. And now you must listen to my confession."

"Don't say a word," said Lingard in an untroubled voice and never taking
his eyes from her face. "I know already."

"You can't," she cried. Her hand slipped off his shoulder. "Then why
don't you throw me into the sea?" she asked, passionately. "Am I to live
on hating myself?"

"You mustn't!" he said with an accent of fear. "Haven't you understood
long ago that if you had given me that ring it would have been just the
same?"

"Am I to believe this? No, no! You are too generous to a mere sham. You
are the most magnanimous of men but you are throwing it away on me.
Do you think it is remorse that I feel? No. If it is anything it is
despair.