. She had not seen him for two days--since the day after
the Clerk of the Court had discovered her in the arms of a man who
was not her husband; but he was coming this evening, and he was coming
to-morrow for the last time; for the repair work on the flume of the dam
would all be finished then.

But would the work he had been doing all be finished then? As she
thought of that incident of three days ago and of its repetition on the
following day, she remembered what he had said to her as she snatched
herself almost violently from his arms, in a sudden access of remorse.
He had said that it had to be, that there was no escape now; and at
his words she had felt every pulse in her body throbbing, every vein
expanding with a hot life which thrilled and tortured her. Life had been
so meagre and so dull, and the man who had worshipped her on the Antoine
now worshipped himself only, and also Zoe, the child, maybe; or so she
thought; while the man who had once possessed her whole mind and whole
heart, and never her body, back there in Spain, he, Carvillho Gonzales,
would have loved her to the end, in scenes where life had colour and
passion and danger and delightful movement.

She was one of those happy mortals who believe that the dead and gone
lover was perfect, and that in losing him she was losing all that life
had in store; but the bare, hard truth was that her Gonzales could have
been true neither to her nor to any woman in the world for longer than
one lingering year, perhaps one lunar month. It did not console her--she
did not think of it-that the little man on the seat of the red wagon,
chirruping with their daughter, had been, would always be, true to her.
Of what good was fidelity if he that was faithful desired no longer as
he once did?

A keen observer would have seen in the glowing, unrestful look, in the
hot cheek, in the interlacing fingers, that a contest was going on in
the woman's soul, as she drove homeward with all that was her own in
the world. The laughter of her husband and child grated painfully on her
ears. Why should they be mirthful while her life was being swept by a
storm of doubt, temptation, and dark passion? Why was it?

Yet she smiled at Jean Jacques when he lifted her down from the red
wagon at the door of the Manor Cartier, even though he lifted his
daughter down first.

Did she smile at Jean Jacques because, as they came toward the Manor,
she saw George Masson in the distance by the flum