omething. It seems to pull me. The great waters and the
blinking lighthouse--I seem to stand out of myself. And miles and miles
and miles away there is a new land with a new life where one might go
... and begin.... What is in me seems to struggle to go out there, but
it never gets more than an inch or so outside. But even that.... And the
wind ... so clean. Are you a sailor?"

"Yes, I am a sailor."

"It is very beautiful and very pure, the sea?"

"Yes, sometimes it is very beautiful. I think it is always beautiful.
And it must be pure--I never thought.... It is strong, and sometimes
cruel. It heals, and sometimes it is very lonely. One never quite
understands. It is so big."

"Yes, so big and strong ... and it heals. One seems, one's self, one's
little cares, to be so little."

And they were silent for a while.

"But perhaps I intrude, Madame. Your husband----"

"My husband is dead in Algiers these six years."

"I am sorry."

Everything was hushed, the tideless sea, the silent wind. Behind them,
and still about them, hung the strange dusk of Pontius Pilate. Before
them blazed Marseilles.

"You are married?"

"I was married."

"Then your wife is--dead?"

"Yes, Madame, she is dead."

"You grieve?"

"No, I do not grieve."

"Did you not love her?"

"I loved some one I thought was she. It wasn't she."

There was another instant's silence as they walked.

"Ah, I think I understand," she said. And they walked into the blaze of
the city. She paused for a moment.

"Will you pardon me for asking things like that? I don't usually.... But
in the dusk I seem to be another person...."

"No. In the light we are other persons."

"Ah," she smiled understandingly. "You are going to your ship now?"

There was a finality in her voice. It was more an affirmation than a
question.

"Madame," Shane said, "will you please let me see you to your door?"

She looked at him for an intense second, and a little cloud of--was it
fear?--flitted across her face.

"Madame, there are thieves and villains of all kinds abroad. You have
had one experience. Please let me protect you from a possible second."

"If you wish." She smiled. He called a carriage.

In the light she was a different person. Along the sea-shore walking in
the dusk, she was a troubled phantom, a thing of beauty, but without
flesh, without the trappings of clothes--as if a spirit had been
imprisoned in cold white statuary. But now she was a beautiful