down to the boat-landing a little before sunset to see the guests
depart. As the line of boats swept away, the black rowers dipping their
oars lightly in the placid waves, he turned with a sense of release,
leaving Madame Arnault and Felice still at the landing, and went down
the levee road towards St. Joseph's. The field gang, whose red, blue,
and brown blouses splotched the squares of cane with color, was
preparing to quit work; loud laughter and noisy jests rang out on the
air; high-wheeled plantation wagons creaked along the lanes; negro
children, with dip-nets and fishing-poles over their shoulders, ran
homeward along the levee, the dogs at their heels barking joyously; a
schooner, with white sail outspread, was stealing like a fairy bark
around a distant bend of the bayou; the silvery waters were turning to
gold under a sunset sky.

It was twilight when he struck across the plantation, and came around by
the edge of the swamp to the clump of trees in a corner of the home
field which he had often remarked from his window. As he approached, he
saw a woman come out of the dense shadow, as if intending to meet him,
and then draw back again. His heart throbbed painfully, but he walked
steadily forward. It was only Felice. _Only Felice!_ She was sitting on
a flat tombstone. The little spot was the Raymonde-Arnault family
burying-ground. There were many marble headstones and shafts, and two
broad low tombs side by side and a little apart from the others. A
tangle of rose-briers covered the sunken graves, a rank growth of grass
choked the narrow paths, the little gate interlaced and overhung with
honeysuckle sagged away from its posts, the fence itself had lost a
picket here and there, and weeds flaunted boldly in the gaps. The girl
looked wan and ghostly in the lonely dusk.

"This is my father's grave, and my mother is here," she said, abruptly,
as he came up and stood beside her. Her head was drooped upon her
breast, and he saw that she had been weeping. "See," she went on,
drawing her finger along the mildewed lettering: "'Felix Marie-Joseph
Arnault ... age de trente-quatre ans' ... 'Helene Pallacier, epouse de
Felix Arnault ... decedee a l'age de dix-neuf ans.' Nineteen years old,"
she repeated, slowly. "My mother was one year younger than I am when she
died--my beautiful mother!"

Her voice sounded like a far-away murmur in his ears. He looked at her,
vaguely conscious that she was suffering. But he did not speak