ferns and vines flanked the path, and an occasional
clump of giant cedars invited us: the world was eloquent.

Several tourists upon the verandah of the hotel remarked us with
curiosity as we entered. A servant said that Mrs. Falchion would be glad
to see us; and we were ushered into her sitting-room. She carried no
trace of yesterday's misadventure. She appeared superbly well. And yet,
when I looked again, when I had time to think upon and observe detail,
I saw signs of change. There was excitement in the eyes, and a slight
nervous darkness beneath them, which added to their charm. She rose,
smiling, and said: "I fear I am hardly entitled to this visit, for I am
beyond convalescence, and Justine is not in need of shrift or diagnosis,
as you see."

I was not so sure of Justine Caron as she was, and when I had paid my
respects to her, I said a little priggishly (for I was young), still not
too solemnly: "I cannot allow you to pronounce for me upon my patients,
Mrs. Falchion; I must make my own inquiries."

But Mrs. Falchion was right. Justine Caron was not suffering much from
her immersion; though, speaking professionally, her temperature was
higher than the normal. But that might be from some impulse of the
moment, for Justine was naturally a little excitable.

We walked aside, and, looking at me with a flush of happiness in her
face, she said: "You remember one day on the 'Fulvia' when I told you
that money was everything to me; that I would do all I honourably could
to get it?"

I nodded. She continued: "It was that I might pay a debt--you know it.
Well, money is my god no longer, for I can pay all I owe. That is, I
can pay the money, but not the goodness, the noble kindness. He is
most good, is he not? The world is better that such men as Captain Galt
Roscoe live--ah, you see I cannot quite think of him as a clergyman. I
wonder if I ever shall!" She grew suddenly silent and abstracted, and,
in the moment's pause, some ironical words in Mrs. Falchion's voice
floated across the room to me: "It is so strange to see you so. And you
preach, and baptise; and marry, and bury, and care for the poor and--ah,
what is it?--'all those who, in this transitory life, are in sorrow,
need, sickness, or any other adversity'?... And do you never long for
the flesh-pots of Egypt? Never long for"--here her voice was not quite
so clear--"for the past?"

I was sure that, whatever she was doing, he had been trying to keep the
talk,