Looking for the last time on that countenance, where shone that same peace he had achieved on that night of agony, I was ashamed of my suspicions. Death had overtaken him in midair. It was not he that had sought Death. The tardy testimony of a little shepherd lad cast a feeble light ta the catastrophe. The boy, seated every day on a rock, where he tended his sheep, had been curiously watching Cernay fly. He had seen him ascend in wide circles like a hawk, until he must have been quite high, because the boy could not hear the buzzing of the screw, so high that the machine touched a cloud and was swallowed up. “I waited,” said the lad, “and then I saw him further up. At that moment he was right against the sun. Then perhaps he began to come down, but suddenly he fell like a stone. I got up, I screamed, I closed my ears, but still I heard the shock against the earth. Then I ran away with my sheep.” Cernay’s ability as a pilot was universally known. People passed over the aviator’s fault. The broken aeroplane would not give up the secret of its downfall. It was known that he had flown the day before in stormy weather, and it was supposed, considering the condition of the canvas and wood, which were still rain-soaked, that there had been some warping by the heat of the sun that made them offer insufficient resistance to the wind. The accident was thought to be similar to the one which had killed Wachter at Rheims. For a while, people spoke very feelingly about it. Later others took his place in the gloomy series. Cernay terminated his career like a solitary, apart from the multitude, after the manner of some mountain climber who accomplishes his dangerous ascent alone and is found some day dead at the bottom of an abyss. * * * Two months later I was presented to Mlle. Simone de R--. I had already met her, but had never had an opportunity of speaking to her. We were among the few French people at a Swiss resort near the snow line, an unattractive place for men and women of the world. One of us, by way of a little diversion, had invited us all to dinner that evening. I confess that I studied carefully the face of that tall and graceful young woman, who bore victory on her forehead. What did she know of that Raymonde, whose place she had almost filled? What recollections, more or less bitter, did she retain of her cruel fiancé of a few weeks?