had dropped a stocking on the white sand, and near it lay an object
that was a shoe or a moccasin, he could not make out which. It was
while she had been wading--alone--that the interruption had come; she
had turned; she had sprung to the flat rock, her hands a little
clenched, her eyes flashing, her breast panting under the smother of her
hair; and it was in this moment, as she stood ready to fight--or
fly--that the camera had caught her.

Now, as he scanned this picture, as it lived before his eyes, a faint
smile played over his lips, a smile in which there was a little humour
and much irony. He had been a fool that day, twice a fool, perhaps three
times a fool. Nothing but folly, a diseased conception of things, could
have made him see tragedy in the face of the woman in the coach, or have
induced him to follow her. Sleeplessness--a mental exhaustion to which
his body had not responded in two days and two nights--had dulled his
senses and his reason. He felt an unpleasant desire to laugh at himself.
Tragedy! A woman in distress! He shrugged his shoulders, and his teeth
gleamed in a cold smile at the girl in the picture. Surely there was no
tragedy or mystery in her poise on that rock! She had been bathing,
alone, hidden away as she thought; some one had crept up, had disturbed
her, and the camera had clicked at the psychological moment of her
bird-like poise when she was not yet decided whether to turn in flight
or remain and punish the intruder with her anger. It was quite clear to
him. Any girl caught in the same way might have betrayed the same
emotions. But--Firepan Creek--Stikine River.... And she was wild. She
was a creature of those mountains and that wild gorge, wherever they
were--and beautiful--slender as a flower--lovelier than....

David set his lips tight. They shut off a quick breath, a gasp, the
sharp surge of a sudden pain. Swift as his thoughts there had come a
transformation in the picture before his eyes--a drawing of a curtain
over it, like a golden veil; and then _she_ was standing there, and the
gold had gathered about her in the wonderful mantle of her
hair--shining, dishevelled hair--a bare, white arm thrust upward through
its sheen, and _her_ face--taunting, unafraid--_laughing at him_! Good
God! could he never kill that memory? Was it upon him again to-night,
clutching at his throat, stifling his heart, grinding him into the agony
he could not fight--that vision of her--_his wife?_ That gir