"Then, he said slowly: 'She was my woman--I loved her, and I could not bury her!'" Herbert's dénouement had come as an astounding surprise. He looked round at the circle of faces, his eyes resting on Le Blanc's and Lemois' as if expecting some reply. The older man roused himself first. "Your story, Monsieur Herbert," he said with a certain quaver in his voice, "has opened up such a wide field that I no longer think of the moral, although I see clearly what you intended to prove. When your climax came"--and his eyes kindled--"I felt as if I were standing on some newly discovered cliff of modern thought, below which rolled a thick cloud of superstition rent suddenly by a flash of human sympathy and love. Below and beyond stretched immeasurable distances fading into the mists of the ages. You will excuse the way I put it--I do not mean to be fanciful nor pedantic--but it does not seem that I can express my meaning in any other way. _Mon Dieu_, what a lot of cheap dancing jacks we are! We dig and sell our product; we plead to save a criminal; we toil with our hands and scheme with our heads, and when it is all done it is to get a higher place in the little world we ourselves make. Once in a while there comes a flash of lightning like this from on high and the cloud is rent in twain and we look through and are ashamed. Thank you again, Monsieur Herbert. You have widened my skull--cracked it open an inch at least, and my heart not a little. Your savage should be canonized!" And he left the room. VI PROVING THAT THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE NEVER DID RUN SMOOTH Mignon's coffee-roaster was silent this morning. By listening intently a faint rhythm could be heard coming from beyond the kitchen door, telling that she was alive and about her work, but the garden was not the scene of her operations. Rain had fallen steadily all night and was still at it, driving every one within doors. Furthermore, somewhere off in the North Sea the wind had suddenly tumbled out of bed and was raising the very Old Harry up and down the coast. Reports had come in of a bad wreck along shore, and much anxiety was felt for the fishing fleet. To brave such a downpour seemed absurd, and so we passed the morning as best we could. I made a sketch in color of the Marmouset; Herbert and Brierley disposed themselves about the room reading, smoking, or criticising my work; Louis upstairs was stretching a canvas--nothing appealed to him like a storm--and he had determined, as soon as the deluge let up--no moderate downpour ever bothers him--to paint the surf dashing against the earth cliffs that frowned above the angry sea. Lemois did not appear until near noon, his excuse being that he had lain awake half the night thinking of Herbert's story of the African's dried wife, and had only dropped off to sleep when the fury of the storm awoke him.