ering, entrancing vista; it
held out its arms to him, and beckoned him; it heaped honour and glory
and riches upon him; it gave him---her!

His hands were clenched at his sides, and the skin over the knuckles,
tight-drawn, showed white; his stride was rapid, fierce; he was
breathing quickly; his face was flushed; his eyes were burning. Paris,
his art that would bring him fame, the fame that would bring him
her--nor heaven nor hell would hold him back!

And then suddenly in the middle of the road he stopped, and his hand
tore at his collar as though it choked him. Subconsciously he had seen
stretching out before him the sparkling blue of the quiet sea, the
headland, the little strip of beach where he and Gaston used to keep
the boats, a blur of white where the house on the bluff showed through
the trees--he had come that far on his way back. Subconsciously, in a
meaningless way, he had seen this; but now it was blotted from him in a
flash, and in its place came a scene that, though imaginary, was vivid,
real, actual, where before reality itself had meant nothing.

It was black, intensely black, and the wild howling of the wind was in
his ears. The rain was lashing at his face, and all along the beach
echoed the terrific boom and roar of the surf. And now there came the
crash of thunder, and quick upon its heels the heavens opening in
darting, zigzag tongue-flames, lurid, magnificent, awesome, as the
lightning flashes leapt across the sky. And he was standing on that
little strip of beach, and far out across the waters, shrouded in a
white smother of spume and spray, the figure of Marie-Louise stood
outlined on the edge of the Perigeau Reef. And now he was crossing
that stretch between them, and living again the physical agony that had
been his; and now he was in the water, clinging to the gunwale of the
boat, and in all the wild abandon of the storm her lips and his were
pressed together in that long kiss that seemed to span all life and all
eternity.

As though spellbound, a whiteness creeping into his face, Jean stood
tense and motionless there in the road. Why had this come now--he had
never let it come in the week that was past. Why should it have come
now, like floodgates opened against his will, to overwhelm him? Ah,
was it that? That little figure, that was just discernible, far off on
that beach, the little figure, bare-footed, that was sitting now on the
stem of his boat where it was drawn up on t