“I had better get her things,” Lee replied. He couldn't leave the delicate and beautiful trifles of Savina's living in the blue vault above. “They were scattered about the room.” That, as well, Daniel assured him, had not been neglected. Her effects were to go over in the wagon with them. Lee, jolting on a springless contrivance over an informal road, kept his hand on the bags beside him. They were in Holland cases which hid the sets of initials ending in G. A revolver was shoved under the leather seat at the driver's left. There were the negro women, half naked, lounging in their doorways. Telling himself that Savina was dead, he lingered over that term, at once so definite and obscure. There had been a pain in her heart at the Dos Hermanos, while they were having dinner, after the steamer, blazing with lights and with music on the upper deck, had swept out of the harbor. And, since then, at night, she had cried out. That, he had thought, was the expression of her consuming passion. He hadn't killed her; he would correct Fancett there. The doctor's glance, almost suspicious, had been intolerable. Savina had whispered to him, at the end, that she was sorry for nothing; she had begged him to be happy. He roused himself and asked Daniel if they had far to go, and learned that they had almost reached the batey. Where, Lee added silently, Daniel wouldn't have us. It might well have saved Savina. The same ideas persisted in his mind. He wondered if, in the hurried packing, her handkerchief had been neglected? It was one of a number that Savina had bought in Havana. He had stayed outside, in the motor, smoking; and, when she had rejoined him, after a long wait, she had displayed her purchases. Her voice had been animated with pleasure at their reasonable price. Things small and unimportant! His brain worked mechanically, like a circling toy that had been tightly wound up and must continue until its spring was expanded. The fundamental calamity was too close for any grasp of its tragic proportions: Savina dead was far more a set of unpredictable consequences than a personality. Alive she had drawn him into herself; she had, with her body, shut out the world of reality if not of mental query. Even the fervor of Cuba had seemed to pale before her burning spirit. What, without knowing it, Dr. Fancett had meant--a thing Lee himself had foreseen--was that Savina had killed herself, she had been consumed by her own flame. But she hadn't regretted it. That assurance, bequeathed to him in the very hush of death, was of massive importance. Nothing else mattered--she had been happy with him. At last, forgetful of the ending, he had brought her freedom from a life not different from a long dreary servitude. He would need to recall this, to remind himself of it, often in the years that would leadenly follow; for he must be regarded as a murderer--the man who, betraying William Grove, had debauched and killed his wife.