gether."

She became insinuating and enticing, passing her hands over his
shoulders, pulling down his neck with a passion that was equal to an
embrace. While speaking, her mouth came near to that of the sailor, the
lips arched, beginning the rounding of a caressing kiss.

"Would you live so badly with Freya?... Do you no longer remember our
past?... Am I now another being?"

Ulysses was remembering only too well that past, and began to recognize
that this memory was becoming too vivid. She, who was following with
astute eyes the seductive memories whirling through his brain, guessed
what they were by the contraction of his face. And smiling
triumphantly, she placed her mouth against his. She was sure of her
power.... And she reproduced the kiss of the Aquarium, that kiss which
had so thrilled the sailor, making his whole body tremble.

But when she gave herself up with more abandon to this dominating
ascendancy, she felt herself repelled, shot back by a brutal
hand-thrust similar to the blow that had hurled her upon the cushions
at the beginning of the interview.

Some one had interposed between the two, in spite of their close
embrace.

The captain, who was beginning to lose consciousness of his acts, like
a castaway, descending and descending through the enchanting domains of
limitless pleasure, suddenly beheld the face of the dead Esteban with
his glassy eyes fixed upon him. Further on he saw another image, sad
and shadowy,--Cinta, who was weeping as though her tears were the only
ones that should fall upon the mutilated body of their son.

"Ah, no!... _No!_"

He himself was surprised at his voice. It was the roar of a wounded
beast, the dry howling of a desperate creature, writhing in torment.

Freya, staggering under the rude push, again tried to draw near to him,
enlacing him again in her arms, in order to repeat her imperious kiss.

"My love!... My love!..."

She could not go on. That tremendous hand again repelled her, but so
violently that her head struck against the cushions of the divan.

The door trembled with a rude shove that made its two leaves open at
the same time, dragging out the bolt of the lock.

The woman, tenacious in her desires, rose up quickly without noticing
the pain of her fall. Nimbleness only could serve her now that Ferragut
was escaping after mechanically picking up his hat.

"Ulysses!... Ulysses!..."

Ulysses was already in the street,--and in the little hallway variou