“But I am not in doubt,” she protested. “I am convinced that I was meant to come to you, that the message was meant for me, and that I know what it means. I am determined to act upon it.” He shook his head with a gesture of despair, but continued: “I have more yet to say and on another point. I advise you to go away from all this. You should and you can. You have your own wealth and your husband’s opulence at your disposal. You have one of the finest steam-yachts on the seas awaiting your pleasure. Much as you have traveled, the globe has many fascinating regions still new to you. Your husband and you have practically not traveled at all since your marriage. You should still hope for your husband’s recovery of his spirits by natural means. Travel is the most obvious prescription. Try that. Because your husband had not emerged from his brooding upon his loss and grief during two years of wandering alone with a valet; because he has not recovered his spirits after two years of matrimony spent in the neighborhood of his first wife’s grave, in mansions full of memories of her, is no reason for not hoping that his elasticity will revive during months or years spent with you among delightful scenes of novelty, far from anything to recall his mind to old associations.” “I have no hope in any such attempt,” she said wearily. “When I cannot bear my life here with a mate who is no more than a likeness of the man I loved, why drag this soulless semblance about the oceans of the earth in the hope of seeing it awake to love me? Shall I expect a miracle from salt air or the rays of the Southern cross?” “Mrs. Llewellyn,” Vargas said, “I have taken the liberty of making inquiries, quite unobtrusively, concerning your husband’s treatment of you. I find that it is the general impression that he is a very uxorious, a very loverly husband. Except the barest minimum required for his affairs, he spends his entire time with you. His best friends, his boyhood’s chums, his life-long cronies he never converses with, never chats with, hardly talks to, and for all his genial cordiality and courtesy, barely more than greets in passing. He is seldom seen at his clubs and very briefly. To all appearances he devotes himself to you wholly. You have all the external trappings of happiness: health, beauty, a devoted husband, the most desirable intimates, countless friends, luxurious surroundings, and unlimited affluence. It is for you to put life into all this, it is your duty to recall to it what you miss. You should leave no natural means untried turning to what you propose.” “My determination is irrevocably taken,” she said. “But what do you expect to find in the coffin?” he queried.