the worst passions of the human race; with the sharp
rocky outline of Turbia; with an almost invisible speck on the horizon
which they said was Corsica; with everything, which, whether mirage or
reality, lifted her out of herself, and plunged her into that state
of excited happiness and indescribable sense of bodily comfort, which
exterior impressions so easily produce upon the young.

After exhausting her vocabulary in exclamations and in questions, she
stood silent, watching the sun as it sank beneath the waters, thinking
that life is well worth living if it can give us such glorious
spectacles, notwithstanding all the difficulties that may have to be
passed through. Several minutes elapsed before she turned her radiant
face and dazzled eyes toward Wanda, or rather toward the spot where
Wanda had been standing beside her. "Oh! my dear--how beautiful!" she
murmured with a long sigh.

The sigh was echoed by a man, who for a few moments had looked at her
with as much admiration as she had looked at the landscape. He answered
her by saying, in a low voice, the tones of which made her tremble from
head to foot:

"Jacqueline!"

"Monsieur de Cymier!"

The words slipped through her lips as they suddenly turned pale. She had
an instinctive, sudden persuasion that she had been led into a snare. If
not, why was Madame Strahlberg now absorbed in conversation with three
other persons at some little distance.

"Forgive me--you did not expect to see me--you seem quite startled,"
said the young man, drawing near her. With an effort she commanded
herself and looked full in his face. Her anger rose. She had seen the
same look in the ugly, brutal face of Oscar de Talbrun. From the Terrace
of Monte Carlo her memory flew back to a country road in Normandy,
and she clenched her hand round an imaginary riding-whip. She needed
coolness and she needed courage. They came as if by miracle.

"It is certain, Monsieur," she answered, slowly, "that I did not expect
to meet you here."

"Chance has had pity on me," he replied, bowing low, as she had set him
the example of ceremony.

But he had no idea of losing time in commonplace remarks--he wished to
take up their intimacy on the terms it had been formerly, to resume the
romance he himself had interrupted.

"I knew," he said in the same low voice, full of persuasion, which gave
especial meaning to his words, "I knew that, after all, we should meet
again."

"I did not expect it," said