ith you," Artois said.

Maurice looked at him again, almost eagerly. An odd feeling came to him
that this man, who unwittingly had done him a deadly harm, would be able
to understand what perhaps no woman could ever understand, the tyranny of
the senses in a man, their fierce tyranny in the sunlit lands. Had he
been so wicked? Would Artois think so? And the punishment that was
perhaps coming--did he deserve that it should be terrible? He wondered,
almost like a boy. But Hermione was not with them. When she was there he
did not wonder. He felt that he deserved lashes unnumbered.

And Artois--he began to feel almost clairvoyant. The new softness that
had come to him with the pain of the body, that had been developed by the
blessed rest from pain that was convalescence, had not stricken his
faculty of seeing clear in others, but it had changed, at any rate for a
time, the sentiments that followed upon the exercise of that faculty.
Scorn and contempt were less near to him than they had been. Pity was
nearer. He felt now almost sure that Delarey had fallen into some
trouble while Hermione was in Africa, that he was oppressed at this
moment by some great uneasiness or even fear, that he was secretly
cursing some imprudence, and that his last words were a sort of
surreptitious plea for forgiveness, thrown out to the Powers of the air,
to the Spirits of the void, to whatever shadowy presences are about the
guilty man ready to condemn his sin. He felt, too, that he owed much to
Delarey. In a sense it might be said that he owed to him his life. For
Delarey had allowed Hermione to come to Africa, and if Hermione had not
come the end for him, Artois, might well have been death.

"I should like to say something to you, monsieur," he said. "It is rather
difficult to say, because I do not wish it to seem formal, when the
feeling that prompts it is not formal."

Maurice was again looking over the wall, watching with intensity the
black speck that was slowly approaching on the little path.

"What is it, monsieur?" he asked, quickly.

"I owe you a debt--indeed I do. You must not deny it. Through your
magnanimous action in permitting your wife to leave you, you, perhaps
indirectly, saved my life. For, without her aid, I do not think I could
have recovered. Of her nobility and devotion I will not, because I cannot
adequately, speak. But I wish to say to you that if ever I can do you a
service of any kind I will do it."

As he finish