Louis! I _do_ love you; how can I let you go! Can you tell me?
What am I to do?
There are times--there are moments when I cannot endure it--the thought of losing the disgrace of your lips--your arms--the sound of your voice.

Don't go and leave me like this--don't go--" Miss Suydam's head fell.

She was crying.
* * * * * The eagle on the wet beach, one yellow talon firmly planted on its offal, tore strip after strip from the quivering mass.

The sun etched his tinted shadow on the sand.
When the tears of Miss Suydam had been appropriately dried, they turned and retraced their steps very slowly, her head resting against his shoulder, his arm around her thin waist, her own hand hanging loosely, trailing the big straw hat and floating veil.
They spoke very seldom--very, very seldom.

Malcourt was too busy thinking; Virginia too stunned to realise that, it was, now, her other austere self, bewildered, humiliated, desperate, which was walking amid the solitude of sky and sea with Louis Malcourt, there beneath the splendour of the westering sun.
The eagle, undisturbed, tore at the dead thing on the beach, one yellow talon embedded in the offal.
Their black chair-boy lay asleep under a thicket of Spanish bayonet.
"Arise, O Ethiope, and make ready unto us a chariot!" said Malcourt pleasantly; and he guided Virginia into her seat while the fat darky climbed up behind, rubbing slumber from his rolling and enormous eyes.
Half-way through the labyrinth they met Miss Palliser and Wayward.
"Where on earth have you been ?" asked Virginia, so candidly that Wayward, taken aback, began excuses.