string 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....

Section 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 Hotel 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
Hotel 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 s