that she had not, and he sat down in the verandah to
wait. He was both an American gentleman and an American father,
therefore he was accustomed to waiting for his women folk and did not
fidget. He read the _New York Herald_, and when he had devoured the
share list, he glanced at the society news and read that, among others
who were expected at the Bohemian health resort that day, was Lord
Fordyce, motoring, for a stay of three weeks for the cure.

He did not know this gentleman personally, and the fact would not have
arrested his attention at all only that he chanced to be interested in
English politics. He wondered vaguely if he would be an agreeable
acquisition to the place, and then turned to more thrilling things.
Presently a slender young woman came down the path through the woods and
leisurely entered the gate. Mr. Cloudwater watched her, and a kindly
smile lit his face. He thought how pretty she was, and how glad he was
that she had joined Moravia and himself again this summer. The months
when she went off by herself to her house in Brittany always seemed very
long. He saw her coming from far enough to be able to take in every
detail about her. Extreme slenderness and extreme grace were her
distinctive marks. The face was childish and rounded in outline, but
when you looked into the violet eyes there was some shadow of a story
hidden there. She was about twenty-two years old, and was certainly not
at Carlsbad for any reasons of cure, for her glowing complexion told a
tale of radiant health.

Her white clothes were absolutely perfect in their simplicity, and so
was her air of unconcern and indifference. "The enigma" her friends
often called her. She seemed so frank and simple, and no one ever got
beyond the wall of what she was really thinking--what did she do with
her life? It seemed ridiculous that any one so rich and attractive and
young should care to pass long periods of time at a wild spot near
Finisterre, in an old chateau perched upon the rocks, completely alone
but for an elderly female companion.

There was, of course, some hidden tragedy about her husband--who was a
raging lunatic or an inebriate shut up somewhere--perhaps there! They
had had to part at once--he had gone mad on the wedding journey, some
believed, but others said this was not at all the case, and that she had
married an Indian chief and then parted from him immediately in
America--finding out the horror of being wedded to a savage. N