lorida seacoast. It was late in
November, but the sky was soft and the air warm and balmy. He bared his
head as he paced moodily to and fro on the silent beach. The waves
rolled languidly to his feet and receded, leaving scattered half-wreaths
of opalescent foam on the snowy sands. The wind that fanned his face was
filled with the spicy odors of the sea. Seized by a capricious impulse,
he threw off his clothes and dashed into the surf. The undulating
billows closed around him; a singular lassitude passed into his limbs as
he swam; he felt himself slowly sinking, as if drawn downward by an
invisible hand. He opened his eyes. The waves lapped musically above his
head; a tawny glory was all about him, a luminous expanse in which he
saw strangely formed creatures moving, darting, rising, falling,
coiling, uncoiling.

"You was jes on de eedge er drowndin', Mars Dick," said Wiley, his black
body-servant, spreading his own clothes on the porch of the little
fishing-hut to dry. "In de name o' Gawd whar mek you wanter go in
swimmin' dis time o' de yea', anyhow? Ef I hadn' er splunge in an' fotch
you out, dey'd er been mo'nin' yander at de plantation, sho!"

His master laughed lazily. "You are right, Wiley," he said; "and you are
going to smoke the best tobacco in Maryland as long as you live." He
felt buoyant. Youth and elasticity seemed to have come back to him at a
bound. He stretched himself on the rough bench, and watched the blue
rings of smoke curl lightly away from his cigar. Gradually he was aware
of a pair of wistful eyes shining down on him. His heart leaped. They
were the eyes of Felice Arnault! "My God, have I been mad!" he muttered.
His eyes sought his hand. The ring, from which he had never been parted,
was gone. It had been torn from his finger in his wrestle with the sea.
"Get my traps together at once, Wiley," he said. "We are going to La
Glorieuse."

"Now you _talkin'_, Mars Dick," assented Wiley, cheerfully.

It was night when he reached the city. First of all, he made inquiries
concerning the little packet. He was right; the _Assumption_ would leave
the next afternoon at five o'clock for Bayou L'Eperon. He went to the
same hotel at which he had stopped before when on his way to La
Glorieuse. The next morning, too joyous to sleep, he rose early, and
went out into the street. A gray uncertain dawn was just struggling into
the sky. A few people on their way to market or to early mass were
passing along the n