It was the first time he had said "Wyndam," and it hurt cruelly at this moment.... "No, no," she said rising hastily. "It would spoil it to come back. We could not forget ourselves like that--so soon again. It always spoils--oh, what am I saying? I think our talk must have interested me very much." "I understand," he said gently. "But we shall talk again--and for this little hour, my whole heart rises to thank you." Pere Rabeaut was waiting upon the veranda. Peculiarly, at this moment he seemed attached to the crook of wine-shop servitude, which Charter had never noticed with such evidence among the familiar casks. Moreover, disorder was written upon the gray face. "_Mon Dieu_, what a day, M. Charter!--a day of judgment! Soronia's little birds are dying!" Charter regarded the sharp, black eyes, which darted over his own face, but would not be held in any gaze. "I heard from my daughter that you are going to the craters of the mountain," the old man said. "'He will need a guide,' said I at once. 'And guides are scarce just now, for the people are afraid of Pelée. Still, he's an old patron,' I said to Soronia. 'He cannot go to the mountain without a guide, so I shall do this little thing for him. He must have our Jacques.'" Charter drew him away. He did not care to have it known at the _Palms_ that he was projecting a trip to the summit. Perhaps the inscrutable Pere Rabeaut was conferring a considerable favor. It was arranged that if he decided to make the journey, the American should call at the wine-shop for Jacques early the following morning. Pere Rabeaut left him none the poorer for his queer errand. Charter avoided Miss Wyndam for the rest of the day. Beyond all the words of their little talk, had come to him a fullness of womanhood quite beyond the dreamer. As he remembered the lustrous face, the completion of his sentences, the mutual sustaining of their thoughts, their steady, tireless ascent beyond the need of words; as he remembered her calms, and the glimpses of cosmic consciousness, her grasp, her expression, her silences, the exquisite refinement of her face, and the lingering adoration in her eyes--the ideal of the Skylark was so clearly and marvellously personified that for moments at a time the vision was lost in the living woman. And for this, Quentin Charter proposed to suffer--and to suffer alone.