"The people about here say that you are good and charitable. You have won the hearts of the mountaineers. But you always had a gift that way."--I did not like her tone.--"One would almost think you had founded a new dispensation. And if I had drowned yesterday, you would, I suppose, have buried me, and have preached a little sermon about me. --You could have done that better than any one else! . . . What would you have said in such a case?" There was an earnest, almost a bitter, protest in the reply. "Pardon me, if I cannot answer your question. Your life was saved, and that is all we have to consider, except to be grateful to Providence. The duties of my office have nothing to do with possibilities." She was evidently torturing him, and I longed to say a word that would torture her. She continued: "And the flesh-pots--you have not answered about them: do you not long for them--occasionally?" "They are of a period," he answered, "too distant for regret." "And yet," she replied softly, "I fancied sometimes in London last year, that you had not outgrown that antique time--those lotos-days." He made no reply at once, and in the pause Justine and I passed out to the verandah. "How long does Mrs. Falchion intend remaining here, Miss Caron?" I said. Her reply was hesitating: "I do not quite know; but I think some time. She likes the place; it seems to amuse her." "And you--does it amuse you?" "It does not matter about me. I am madame's servant; but, indeed, it does not amuse me particularly." "Do you like the place?" The reply was somewhat hurried, and she glanced at me a little nervously. "Oh yes," she said, "I like the place, but--" Here Roscoe appeared at the door and said, "Mrs. Falchion wishes to see Viking and Mr. Devlin's mills, Marmion. She will go with us." In a little time we were on our way to Viking. I walked with Mrs. Falchion, and Roscoe with Justine. I was aware of a new element in Mrs. Falchion's manner. She seemed less powerfully attractive to me than in the old days, yet she certainly was more beautiful. It was hard to trace the new characteristic. But at last I thought I saw it in a decrease of that cold composure, that impassiveness, so fascinating in the past. In its place had come an allusive, restless something, to be found in words of troublesome vagueness, in variable moods, in an increased sensitiveness of mind and an undercurrent of emotional bitterness--she was emotional at last! She puzzled me greatly, for I saw two spirits in her: one pitiless as of old; the other human, anxious, not unlovely. At length we became silent, and walked so side by side for a time. Then, with that old delightful egotism and selfishness--delightful in its very daring--she said: "Well, amuse me!" "And is it still the end of your existence," I rejoined--"to be amused?" "What is there else to do?" she replied with raillery.