at my life was
going to be in future. Less than three weeks before no thought of love
had stirred me, and Jacqueline was undreamed of. Now she had entered
into my heart and twined herself inextricably around its roots.

That I should love her till I died I did not doubt at all.

Her last words had been in the nature of a farewell. There was no more
to say. Not even good-bye. I must go before that old, insatiable
longing for her arose in me again.

I saw her in my mind's eyes as clearly as though she stood before me.
Her loving, gracious presence, her sweet, pure face, her courage, her
tenderness--all these were for Leroux. Nothing remained for me, except
my memories.

I should have to make a great deal of my life. I had always believed
that life was only a prelude to greater and finer things. I was not
sure; I am not sure to-day; but if the life that is to come is not the
realization of our unfulfilled desires, then nothing matters here. I
was thinking of that as I paced the tunnel. And in that way I felt
that, in a measure, Jacqueline was still mine.

"Everything that is free," she had said to me, "thoughts, will and
dreams." That part was mine; and that could never be taken away.

I had reached the verge of the cataract and stood beside the little
platform, looking down. There was no star now like that which had
guided me in the morning, but the sky was fair and the air mild. I
gazed in awe at the great stream of water, sending its ceaseless
current down into the troubled lake below.

How many ages it had done that! Yet even that must end some day, as
everything ends--even life, thank God!

And then I saw Lacroix again. I was sure of it now. He was peering
after me from among the rocks, and, as I turned, he was scuttling away
into the tunnel.

I followed him. I had always mistrusted the man; more, even, than
Leroux. I felt that his furtive presence there portended something
more evil than my own fate and Jacqueline's must be.

I followed him hotly; but he must have known every fissure in the
cliff, for he vanished before my eyes, apparently through the solid
rock, and when I reached the place of his disappearance I could find no
sign of any passage there.

Well, there was no use in following him further. I paced the tunnel
restlessly. The sleigh ought to be at the mine in five minutes more.
I turned back to take a last look at the cataract.

The sublime grandeur of those thousand ton