."

Dr. Coutras insisted, but she would not let him pass. Dr. Coutras
shrugged his shoulders, and after a moment's rejection turned away.
She walked with him. He felt that she too wanted to be rid of him.

"Is there nothing I can do at all?" he asked.

"You can send him some paints," she said. "There is nothing
else he wants."

"Can he paint still?"

"He is painting the walls of the house."

"This is a terrible life for you, my poor child."

Then at last she smiled, and there was in her eyes a look of
superhuman love. Dr. Coutras was startled by it, and amazed.
And he was awed. He found nothing to say.

"He is my man," she said.

"Where is your other child?" he asked. "When I was here last
you had two."

"Yes; it died. We buried it under the mango."

When Ata had gone with him a little way she said she must turn
back. Dr. Coutras surmised she was afraid to go farther in
case she met any of the people from the village. He told her
again that if she wanted him she had only to send and he would
come at once.

Chapter LVI

Then two years more went by, or perhaps three, for time passes
imperceptibly in Tahiti, and it is hard to keep count of it;
but at last a message was brought to Dr. Coutras that
Strickland was dying. Ata had waylaid the cart that took the
mail into Papeete, and besought the man who drove it to go at
once to the doctor. But the doctor was out when the summons
came, and it was evening when he received it. It was
impossible to start at so late an hour, and so it was not till
next day soon after dawn that he set out. He arrived at
Taravao, and for the last time tramped the seven kilometres
that led to Ata's house. The path was overgrown, and it was
clear that for years now it had remained all but untrodden.
It was not easy to find the way. Sometimes he had to stumble
along the bed of the stream, and sometimes he had to push
through shrubs, dense and thorny; often he was obliged to
climb over rocks in order to avoid the hornet-nests that hung
on the trees over his head. The silence was intense.

It was with a sigh of relief that at last he came upon the
little unpainted house, extraordinarily bedraggled now,
and unkempt; but here too was the same intolerable silence.
He walked up, and a little boy, playing unconcernedly in the
sunshine, started at his approach and fled quickly away:
to him the stranger was the enemy. Dr. Coutras had a sense that
the child was ste