given up about everything in life; I was away
without leave, had lost touch with my world--with everybody--except my
agents, who sent me money. Then began a still hunt, he following us and
we shifting from place to place, until we hid ourselves in a little town
in Northern Italy.

"'Two years had now passed, I still crazy mad--knowing nothing, thinking
nothing--one blind idolatry! One morning I found a note on my table;
she was going to Venice. I was not to follow until she sent for me. She
never sent--not a line--no message. Then the truth came out--she never
intended to send--she was tired of it all!'

"The young fellow rose from his seat and began pacing the dirt floor
again. He seemed strangely stirred. I waited for the sequel, but he kept
silent.

"'Is this why you came here?' I asked.

"'Yes and no. I came here because one of my brother officers is at one
of the stations up the river, and because here I could be lost. You
can explain it as you will, but go where I may I live in deadly fear
of meeting the man I wronged. Here he can't hunt me, as he has done all
over Europe. If we meet there is but one thing left--either I must kill
him or he will kill me. I would have faced him at any time but for her.
Now I could not harm him. We have both suffered from the same cause--the
loss of a woman we loved. I had caused his agony and it is for me to
make amends, but not by sending him to his grave. Here he is out of
my way and I out of his. You saw me burn that letter; I have destroyed
dozens of them. When I can stand the pressure no longer I sit down
and ask his pardon; then I tear it up or burn it. He couldn't
understand--wouldn't understand. He'd think I was afraid to meet him
and was begging for my life. Don't you see how impossible it all is--how
damnably I am placed?'"

Mme. Constantin and the others had gathered closer to where Bayard sat.
Even the wife of the young secretary had moved her chair so she could
look into the speaker's face. All were absorbed in the story. Bayard
went on:--

"One of the queer things about the African fever is the way it affects
the brain. The delirium passes when the temperature goes down, but
certain hallucinations last sometimes for weeks. How much of the queer
story was true, therefore, and how much was due to his convalescence--he
was by no means himself again--I could not decide. That a man should
lose his soul and freedom over a woman was not new, but that he should
bury h