She wore over her dress a sort of brown mantle with a hood turned up on the shoulders. This hood allowed her bare head to be seen, as well as her long brown curls that floated in the wind. Her countenance had an expression of sweet and resigned melancholy; sometimes, however, her blue eyes shone with a new brightness, and she lifted up her noble, beautiful head with an expression of wounded pride. She loved passionately, but without hope, and she was going to throw to the winds the feeble tokens of this impossible love. At her feet, far, far below her, broke the raging waves of the sea. She drew the rosary from her bosom, looked at it a moment with bitterness, pressed it to her heart, then, extending her white and delicate hand above the abyss, she held it motionless a moment, and the rosary fell into the waves below. She tried to follow it with her eyes, but the edge of the cornice was too sharp to allow her a view. She sighed profoundly, took the portrait of the unknown, and contemplated it a long time in sad admiration. Nothing could be purer or more enchanting than the features of Erebus; his large brown eyes, soft and proud at the same time, reminded her of the look, full of purity and dignity, which he cast upon Raimond V. after having saved his life. The smile of this portrait, full of serenity, had nothing of that satirical smile and bold expression which had so startled her on the eventful day. For a few moments she struggled with her resolution, then reason asserted her empire; blushing, she pressed her lips to the medallion, then on the brow of the portrait, and then--threw it suddenly into space. This painful sacrifice accomplished, Reine felt less oppressed; she believed that she would have committed a wrong in preserving these memorials of a foolish love. Then she felt free to abandon herself to the thoughts locked in the depths of her heart. She walked a long time on the beach, absorbed in these thoughts. On returning to Maison-Forte she learned that Raimond V. had not yet returned from the chase. Night was fast falling, and Reine, followed by Stephanette, entered her apartment What was her amazement, her terror-- She found on the table the portrait and rosary that two hours before she had thrown into the depths of the sea. CHAPTER XXI. OUR LADY OF SEVEN SORROWS We will abandon for awhile Maison-Forte of the Baron des Anbiez, and the little city of La Ciotat, in order to conduct the reader on board the galley of the commander Pierre des Anbiez. The tempest had forced this vessel to take refuge in the little port of Tolari, situated on the east of Cape Corsica, a northerly point of the island of the same name. The bell of the galley had just sounded six o’clock in the morning. The weather was gloomy and the sky veiled with black and threatening clouds; frequent and violent squalls of wind were raising a strong swell within the port.