"Distinctly so. Perhaps he is one of those rare mortals who really believe that beauty is only skin deep." "How consoling that great and original thought must be for you!" "For me? Why for me?" "Because, like charity, beauty covers a multitude of sins." Someone overheard this passage at arms. The quip held a barbed shaft which flew far, even unto Iquique, and the Chilean merchant regained lost ground when he heard of it by exclaiming, "How true!" But, strive as she might, and did, Marguerite never received any confidences from Power. They talked about many things; but his past history remained a closed volume. The long, hot days succeeded one another with monotonous regularity. When the red cliffs of Valparaiso appeared beneath the snow-crowned line of the Andes, those two, perhaps, were the only people on the ship who regretted that the voyage was at an end. "So we part here," said the girl, as Power found her waiting near the gangway to go ashore in the tender. "Yes," he said. "When you are older you will realize that life consists largely of partings." "I know that now," she said. She was wearing a white double veil, which was her habit when in towns, so he could not see that she was very pale. He was aware of an irksome pause--a rare thing as between Marguerite Sinclair and himself. "You go straight to your new steamer, I believe?" he went on, forcing the conversation. "Yes. And you?" "I drift into a hotel for a couple of days." "And I cannot tempt you to visit my poor but proud Patagonia?" "I fear not." "Goodby, Mr. Power." She shook hands with him hurriedly, and joined the crush of passengers in the gangway. She moved with the easy grace of one who lived much in the open air. For the hundredth time she reminded him of Nancy. He sighed. At last his seven years' pilgrimage had really begun! CHAPTER XIV THE WANDER-YEARS If this record were a story of romantic adventure, it might well start from the moment Power set foot in the hotel which a relative of an eminent French actress used to keep in Valparaiso. He had not been in the city many hours before a brutal assault on a woman led him to intervene. During the resultant scuffle he was robbed of his pocketbook, and, in addition to a narrow escape from being knifed, he was informed by a supercilious policeman that the whole affair, including the screams of a female apparently in fear of her life, had been cleverly engineered for the express purpose of relieving him of his money.