Max Doran passed some of the worst moments
of his life. He lived over again his anguish at Rose's death; heard
again her confession which, like a sharp knife, with one stroke had cut
him loose from ties of love; and gazed ahead into a future swept bare of
all old friendships, luxuries, and pleasures. His "business," of which
he had made much to Miss DeLisle, consisted solely in walking down the
Mustapha hill from the garden of the Hotel St. George to the small
white-painted post-office, and there sending off two telegrams. One was
to Edwin Reeves: the other was the message for which Billie Brookton had
thriftily asked in her special postscript. "Have lost everything," he
wrote firmly. "Will explain in letter following and ask you to treat it
in confidence. Good-bye, I hope you may be happy always. Max."

As he paid for the telegrams he wondered that the framing of Billie's
did not turn one more screw of the rack which tortured heart and brain,
but he felt no new wrench in the act of giving up the girl whom all men
wanted. She seemed strangely remote, as if there had never been any
chance of her belonging to him. Max had something like a sensation of
guilt because he could not call up a picture of her, traced with the
sharp clarity of an etching. In thinking of Billie, he had merely an
impressionist portrait: golden hair, wonderful lashes, and a sudden
upward look from large, dark eyes, set in a face of pearly whiteness.
Because Sanda DeLisle was somewhat of the same type, having yellow-brown
hair, and a small, fair face, her image would push itself in front of
that other far more beautiful image; far more beautiful at least, save
in the one moment of glowing radiance which had illumined Sanda, as a
rose--light within might illumine a pale lily. No woman on earth could
have been more beautiful than she, at that instant; but the magic fire
had been kindled by, and for, another man; and if Max had not already
guessed, it would have revealed her whole secret.

The impression was so vivid that it clouded everything else, just as a
white light focussed upon one figure on the stage dims all others there.
He thought of himself, and what he should do with life after his mission
was finished; whether he should take the name of Delatour, which was
rightfully his, or choose a new one; yet suddenly, in the midst of some
pressing question, he would forget to search for the answer, as Sanda
DeLisle's transfigured face seemed to shine