“You were perfect,” it went on. “Whenever you came near me everything seemed different.” “What do you mean? How different?” “Altogether. The light, the very stones of the house, the hills, the little flowers amongst the rocks! Even Nanette was different.” Nanette was a white Angora with long silken hair, a pet that lived mostly in the yard. “Oh, Nanette was different too,” said Réal, whom delight in the modulations of that voice had cut off from all reality, and even from a consciousness of himself, while he sat stooping over that head resting against his knee, the soft grip of her hand being his only contact with the world. “Yes. Prettier. It’s only the people....” She ceased on an uncertain note. The crested wave of enchantment seemed to have passed over his head, ebbing out faster than the sea, leaving the dreary expanses of the sand. He felt a chill at the roots of his hair. “What people?” he asked. “They are so changed. Listen, to-night while you were away--why did you go away?--I caught those two in the kitchen, saying nothing to each other. That Peyrol--he is terrible.” He was struck by the tone of awe, by its profound conviction. He could not know that Peyrol, unforeseen, unexpected, inexplicable, had given by his mere appearance at Escampobar a moral and even a physical jolt to all her being, that he was to her an immense figure, like a messenger from the unknown entering the solitude of Escampobar; something immensely strong, with inexhaustible power, unaffected by familiarity and remaining invincible. “He will say nothing, he will listen to nothing. He can do what he likes.” “Can he?” muttered Réal. She sat up on the floor, moved her head up and down several times as if to say that there could be no doubt about that. “Is he, too, thirsting for my blood?” asked Réal bitterly. “No, no. It isn’t that. You could defend yourself. I could watch over you. I have been watching over you. Only two nights ago I thought I heard noises outside and I went downstairs, fearing for you; your window was open but I could see nobody, and yet I felt.... No, it isn’t that! It’s worse. I don’t know what he wants to do. I can’t help being fond of him, but I begin to fear him now. When he first came here and I saw him he was just the same--only his hair was not so white--big, quiet. It seemed to me that something moved in my head. He was gentle, you know. I had to smile at him. It was as if I had recognized him. I said to myself: ‘That’s he, the man himself.’” “And when I came?” asked Réal with a feeling of dismay. “You! You were expected,” she said in a low tone, with a slight tinge of surprise at the question, but still evidently thinking of the Peyrol mystery. “Yes, I caught them at it last evening, he and Catherine, in the kitchen, looking at each other and as quiet as mice. I told him he couldn’t order me about. Oh, mon chéri, mon chéri, don’t you listen to Peyrol--don’t let him....”