arraignment, surged upon him.
Honour, and glory, and wealth, and power, and fame, and luxury were
his--and what had she, alone here in the cold, wet misery of the
steerage, driven to the deck perhaps for a breath of pure air from
where below a thousand, babel-tongued, were cattle-herded? What had
she--where he had all? If the memories of that little white-cottaged
haven on the sun-kissed shores of the Mediterranean had brought him a
bitter loneliness--what must those memories be bringing to her? There,
in Bernay-sur-Mer, was the only life that she had ever known; there
were the simple folk who loved her; there were her friends, her
associations; there was her little world; there was her all--and he had
driven her from it! As surely as though by brutal physical force, he
had driven her from it! Yes; he had done that! That was why she was
here!

His face, grey as the mist around him, went down on his arms upon the
rail, and a sob shook the great shoulders. Where were the dreams that
she and he had dreamed of life there together in the love that had
known its birth in childhood? Where were they? Who had shattered
them, that she was no longer there, but stood an outcast, friendless
and alone, here in the steerage of the ship that was taking her from
France? Where was the oath that he had sworn to Gaston as the brave
old fisherman had died? "There is a crucifix there; swear that you
will guard her and that you will let no harm come to her." Forsworn!
A traitor! He had chosen fame, and power, and position--and she, in
her pure, unselfish love, had stood aside for him!

Again the sullen boom of the siren mourned out into the night, held,
quavered, died away. Silence, intense, absolute! Then, stealing again
upon the senses, the slap and wash of water against the liner's hull,
the medley of a thousand ship sounds.

"_God_!"--the soul-torn cry fluttered from Jean's lips.

He had chosen wealth, and power, and fame, and position, and they had
been Marie-Louise's gift to him--and his gift to her in return had been
the bitterest dregs of life! And now wealth, and power, and fame, and
position were his to-day, his beyond that of any other man's, he knew
them all; they were his; he knew the adulation and the fawning of the
great; but out of it all, out of the pomp and pageantry and the
glitter, the tinsel and the gleam of gold, where was the one supreme,
undying, immortal truth of life--who cared for Jean Laparde?