Far below her, shimmering in the heat, stretched the city, like a panting dog at rest. To the right, across the forest of minor shipping in the _vieux port_, to the rue Clary and the Gare Maritime, the massed houses of the Old Town stood grim and grey. Directly before her, from the foot of the wall and for miles to the left, across the Cite Chabas and the Quartier St. Lambert, to Roucas-Blanc and beyond to Rond Point, where the Prado meets the sea, the hills fell away to the water in terraces of cypress and olive trees and pomegranates in blossom. From dark green to white the foliage waved in a pleasant breeze. The villas on the slopes shone pink in the sun. The sky was of a most intense blue; the lapping waves of the bay mirrored the sky, and in the midst of the waves, among its rocky sister islands, rose the castellated strip of land where towers the Chateau d'If. She leaned upon the parapet and looked out to the distant horizon. The breeze rose and rumpled those strands of her dark hair that had fallen below her wide hat. She was thinking of another landscape--of a landscape of which she had only heard: "The silent chapel; the long, fertile plateau that seems a world away; the snow-capped mountains to the northward; the faint tinkle of the distant sheep-bells, and the memory of her that sinned and repented and was saved." "Muriel!" It was von Klausen; but not the gay von Klausen that she had known and had come to fear. His face was drawn; his eyes grave; his manner serious. "How did you come here?" The question escaped her before she had time to fall back upon her weapons of defence. "It was very simple," he answered. "I called at your hotel the morning after you departed--because I had to see you, whether you wished me or not. They said you were gone. I asked for your forwarding address, and they told me Marseilles. I came here; I searched the hotels; at your hotel the porter told me that your trunks had been carted to a villa on the Corniche. I went to the villa. The maid said that you had come here." His explanation was long enough to give her a chance to regain her poise. "How dared you come?" she asked. "Wait until you have heard what I have to say," he replied. "There is nothing you can say that will change the situation." "Hear me first, Muriel, and you will understand." "I won't listen. I don't like you, and I won't listen!" "You must." He came nearer to her. "What do you suppose my husband will say when he finds you here?" she demanded. "He is in the church now; he will be out in a moment." "I suppose that he will say that he is glad to see me. I am sure that you have told him nothing." She eyed him menacingly. "Are you so sure of that?" "Absolutely," he replied. "But it makes no difference if you have told him all that there is to tell, everything. I am not afraid." "Then you do not think of what I may be afraid? You do not consider me?--But of course you don't!"