die," he pursued, in the same meditative tone, "that
morning in the Pre Catalan. George Eveleth could have had my life for
the asking. I'd never known him to miss his mark, and he wouldn't have
missed me--if he hadn't had another destination for his bullet. I've
regretted it more than once. I've had pretty nearly all that life could
give me--and I've made a mess of it."

"You haven't had--love," she ventured.

"Love?" he echoed, with a short laugh. "I've had every kind of love but
one; and that I'm not worthy of."

"We get a good many things we're not worthy of; but they help us just
the same."

"This wouldn't help me," he returned, speaking very slowly. "I shouldn't
know what to do with it. It would be as useless to me in my new
conditions as a chaplet of pearls to a slave in the galleys. So, what
would you do?"

"I'd do right at any cost."

She scarcely knew that the words were spoken, so intent was her thought
on the strange mixture of elements in his personality. It was not until
she had waited in vain for a response that she found the echo of her
speech still in her mental hearing and recognized its import. Her first
impulse was to cry out and take it back; but she restrained herself and
waited. It was an instant in which the love of daring, that was so
instinctive in her nature, blew, as it were, a trumpet-challenge to the
same passion in his own, while they sat staring at each other, wide-eyed
and speechless, in the dancing firelight.

XXIV

On the following day the Marquis de Bienville found the execution of any
intentions he might have had toward Derek Pruyn postponed by the
circumstance that Miss Regina van Tromp was dead. The helpless,
inarticulate life, which for three years had served as a bond to hold
more active existences together, had failed suddenly, leaving in the
little group a curious impression of collapse. It became perceptible
that the hushed sick-room, where Miss Lucilla and Mrs. Eveleth were the
only ministrants, had in reality been a centre for those who never
entered it. Now that the living presence was withdrawn, there came the
consciousness of dispersing interests, inseparable from the passing away
of the long established, which gives the spirit pause. The days before
the funeral became a period of suspended action, in which Life refrained
from too marked a manifestation of its energies, out of reverence for
Death. Even when the grave was filled in, and the will read, and