“Loves his crown, perhaps. But that is uncharitable. Still, what hope can there be of her exercising a good influence over him? Oh, Cyril, isn’t it terrible to see everything going wrong around one, and not to be able to put it right?” “I thought you believed that, after all, things were better managed than you could arrange them yourself?” “I know. I am wrong to be so faithless. But one cannot see how all this is to end.” Usk walked away from the Villa Bougainvillea with bent head and compressed lips, and crossing the Avénue de la Gare, took the direction of the Cornice Road. Félicia had befooled him once more. It was arranged that he should come to the Villa at a certain time in the afternoon, as he had done each day since their reconciliation, more with the object of asserting his rights than because he felt any special pleasure in Félicia’s society. To-day, as he approached the house, he had caught a distant glimpse of a motor-car dashing off in the opposite direction, and it was hardly with surprise that he heard the servant say that madame and mademoiselle were not at home. There was a meaning look in the man’s eyes, and for a moment Usk thought of asking him where the ladies were. But he rejected with disgust the idea of bribing a servant to spy upon Félicia, and moreover, there in the drive were the marks of the wheels of the automobile, conclusive evidence. Conscious that the man was watching his face with malicious interest, he remarked merely that he would look in again later, and walked slowly down the steps with head erect. But when he was out of sight of the door, he gave up the pretence, and his pace quickened insensibly. He must walk on and on until he was away from every one, and could think over this last treachery and all that it implied. Crowded streets and close-set houses, villas in gardens, desolate building-land with straggling beginnings of avenues and terraces here and there--they were all passed at last, and he was breasting the slope of the mountain. Past the Observatory, up a farther ascent, and he came upon a quiet spot enough, though four roads met there. He left the road and plunged into the wilderness of low scented bushes, hating the perfume they gave out as he crashed through them. Mounting a hillock, he found a spot bare of bushes, and flung himself on the turf, invisible to any one passing along the road. For a time he could only lie there writhing in impotent passion, digging his feet into the ground, and tearing up handfuls of grass and tiny flowers and flinging them away. The instinct of destruction was strong upon him. He loathed the beauties round him and the beauty outspread in front--the long slopes clad in every shade of green, grey-green of olives, light-green of carob, dark-green of orange and lemon-trees, bright-green of pistachio, stretching down to the almost painful blue of the sea, from which the eye sought relief gladly in the white of the town opposite