was suffocatingly hot. Carey raised his arms with a desperate
movement. He felt as if he were swimming in hot vapour. And he had been
swimming for a long time, too. He was deadly tired. A light flashed in
his eyes, and very far above him--like an object viewed through the
small end of a telescope--he saw a face. Vaguely he heard a voice
speaking, but what it said was beyond his comprehension. It seemed to
utter unintelligible things. For a while he laboured to understand, then
the effort became too much for him. The light faded from his brain.

Later--much later, it seemed--he awoke to full consciousness, to find
himself in a Breton fisherman's cottage, watched over by a kindly little
French doctor who tended him as though he had been his brother.

"_Monsieur_ is better, but much better," he was cheerily assured. "And
for _madame_ his wife he need have no inquietude. She is safe and well,
and only concerns herself for _monsieur_."

This was reassuring, and Carey accepted it without comment or inquiry.
He knew that there was a misunderstanding somewhere, but he was still
too exhausted to trouble himself about so slight a matter. He thanked
his kindly informant, and again he slept.

Two days later his interest in life revived. He began to ask questions,
and received from the doctor a full account of what had occurred.

He had been washed ashore, he was told--he and _madame_ his
wife--lashed fast together. The ship had been wrecked within half a mile
of the land. But the seas had been terrific. There had not been many
survivors.

Carey digested the news in silence. He had had no friends on board,
having embarked only at Gibraltar.

At length he looked up with a faint smile at his faithful attendant.
"And where is--_madame_?" he asked.

The little doctor hesitated, and spread out his hands deprecatingly.

"Oh, _monsieur_, I regret--I much regret--to have to inform you that she
is already departed for Paris. Her solicitude for you was great, was
pathetic. The first words she speak were: 'My husband, do not let him
know!' as though she feared that you would be distressed for her. And
then she recover quick, quick, and say that she must go--that _monsieur_
when he know, will understand. And so she depart early in the morning of
yesterday while _monsieur_ is still asleep."

He was watching Carey with obvious anxiety as he ended, but the
Englishman's face expressed nothing but a somewhat elaborate
indifference.

"I