Never again!--Why, did he not think that night that he should be able to keep her on his island; that it would last a year at least, until the next year's fêtes; that he would have the wild beast to himself in the desert, in his wild beast's lair--all to himself, with her lithe, graceful body, her ankle-rings and bracelets, and her beggar queen's crown? But did she not love him? Had it all been mere trickery and craft on her part? The horse's blood flowed freely under the drover's spurs; but the horseman's heart was bleeding within him a thousand times more cruelly. All mere trickery and craft! He repeated it again and again to himself, and would not believe it. That she was false to the core, he firmly believed, and, by dint of thinking about it, soon ceased to believe it. That would have been too horrible, really! His self-pity and the feeling that he must be proud of her forced back the thought, which, driven away for a moment, returned again at once with more force as a sure, proven, established fact. It returned like a flash of light which hurt his eyes. Yes, yes, she was false to the core! yes, from pure wantonness the woman had deceived him again and again since the day of the bath, when she exhibited her naked body to him with the deliberate purpose of leading him astray, of leaving him, some day, stranded in the desert, without his fiancée, without his love--alone. And he struggled desperately to see her again--in his memory at least--in order to question her crafty features, but, try as he would, his mind was unable to restore the picture, drowned as it was beneath a wavering, irritating mist. He opened his eyes to their fullest extent, as if, by causing them to express a fixed determination to see her again, he could compel her to appear before him in flesh and blood. And he no longer saw the trees or the moor that lay before him, or the sky or the horizon, but neither did he see her whose image he sought to evoke. Then he suddenly closed his eyes, and for a brief second--in the darkness--he caught a glimpse of her. Was it really she? He had not time to recognize her. Once, however, the image became clearer, and he _saw_ her; but still it was only a shadowy face, still veiled with falsehood and impenetrable to him. [Illustration: Chapter XXIII _She went to the farther end of the Allée des Alyscamps, between the rows of tall poplars, amid the stone monuments, and lighted a fire of twigs, to give her light enough to look about and select a spot where she could sleep comfortably._]