s
soul-deep in his life--the smell of it in his nostrils, the feel of it
upon his cheeks was flinging wide apart now the floodgates of the past.

Living, vivid before him was the sparkling, wonderful blue of that
southern sea, fringed with the little white cottages of Bernay-sur-Mer
that had been his home; and beneath bare feet he felt again the smooth,
fine, yielding sand upon the beach where as a baby he had crawled,
where still a baby he had taken his first step, where as a man he had
struggled for his place among men and once had played a man's part.
The cheery voices of the fishermen as they launched their boats were in
his ears; they called to him; and laughed; and, because all were his
friends, twitted him good-naturedly, twitted him and teased him
about--about Marie-Louise. Marie-Louise! A low, sharp, involuntary
cry of pain rose to his lips. With a violent effort he tried to shake
himself free from his thoughts--but it was as though he were in the
grip of some strange, immutable power that held him bound and shackled,
while with lightning-like rapidity, whether he would or no, upon him
rushed the ever-changing scenes. The face of Madame Fregeau, his
foster-mother, coarse-featured perhaps, but beautiful because it was a
sweet and wholesome face, came before him; and her arms that were
rough, and red, and shapeless were around his neck in an old-time
embrace. She had loved him, the good Mother Fregeau! Came the faces
of Pierre Lachance, of Papa Fregeau, of little Ninon, of a score of
toddling mites clapping their hands in childish ecstasy over the clay
_poupees_ he had made for them--and all these had been his friends.
And all these were gone now, all were gone, and in their place
was--what? He raised his head. Hoarse-tongued, the siren cried again.
It seemed like the wail of a lost soul out-flung into the night, into
the vastness, calling, calling where there was none to answer--echoing
the loneliness that was filling his heart that night.

He had forgotten all these things in Paris; he had made himself
forget--and besides there had been Myrna. He had fought for her,
striven for her tempestuously, fiercely, as a prize that nor heaven nor
hell could hold back from him--and, ghastly in its mocking irony, it
was only when the prize was won that, like some wondrously beautiful,
iridescent bubble, glorious in its colours as the sunlight played upon
it, it burst and nothing but the dregs of it remained as he