"I ought not to have brought you here. You were in despair, and I took advantage of it. Can you forgive me, Annette?" "Dear Dick, there is nothing to forgive. I was more to blame than you." "It was instead of the Seine. That was the excuse I made to myself. But the wind blows it away. It blows everything away--everything, everything.... Don't be angry again like that, Annette. Promise me you won't. You were too angry, and I took a mean advantage of it.... I once took advantage of a man's anger with a horse, but it brought me no luck. I thought I wouldn't do it again, but I did. And I haven't got much out of it this time either. I'm dying, or something like it. I'm going away for good and all. I'm so tired I don't know how I shall ever get there." "Rest a little, Dick. Don't talk any more now." "I want to give you a tip before I go. An old trainer put me up to it, and he made me promise not to tell anyone, and I haven't till now. But I want to do you a good turn to make up for the bad one. He said he'd never known it fail, and I haven't either. I've tried it scores of times. When you're angry, Annette, look at a cloud." Dick's blue eyes were fixed with a great earnestness on hers. "Not just for a minute. Choose a good big one, like a lot of cotton wool, and go on looking at it while it moves. And the anger goes away. Sounds rot, doesn't it? But you simply can't stay angry. Seems as if everything were too small and footling to matter. Try it, Annette. Don't look at water any more. That's no use. But a cloud--the bigger the better.... You won't drown yourself now, will you?" "No." "Annette rolling down to the sea over and over, knocking against the bridges. I can't bear to think of it. Promise me." "I promise." He sighed, and his hand fell out of hers. She laid it down. The great wind of which he spoke had taken him once more, whither he knew not. She leaned her face against the pillow and longed that she too might be swept away whither she knew not. The doctor came in and looked at them. "Are his family coming soon?" he asked Mrs. Stoddart afterwards. "And Madame Le Geyt! Can Madame's mother be summoned? There has been some great shock. Her eyes show it. It is not only Monsieur who is on the verge of the precipice." CHAPTER V "And he the wind-whipped, any whither wave Crazily tumbled on a shingle-grave To waste in foam." GEORGE MEREDITH. Towards evening Dick regained consciousness. "Annette." That was always the first word. "Here." That was always the second. "I lost the way back," he said breathlessly. "I thought I should never find it, but I had to come." He made a little motion with his hand, and she took it. "You must help me. I have no one but you." His eyes dwelt on her. His helpless soul clung to hers, as hers did to his. They were like two shipwrecked people--were they not indeed shipwrecked?--cowering on a raft together, alone, in the great ring of the sea.