the one, old, persisting friend, Mrs. Jordan, and finds her dead!
And what seemed strange, incredible beyond belief, was that this
creature Barras had thought only of her fortune which he had
depleted in two years to the something less than twenty thousand
pounds which I had exchanged for her into our money; a mere
fragment of her great inheritance.

I had listened to the story entranced with the alluring teller of
it; wondering as I now wondered, on the road to the village, how
anything pretending to be man could think of money when she was
before his eye.

What could he buy with money that equaled her! And yet this
curious jackal had seen in her only the key to a strong-box.
There was behind it, in explanation, shadowed out, the glamor of
an empire that Senor Barras would set up with the millions in his
country of revolutions, and the enthusiasms of a foolish mother.

And yet the jackal and this wreckage had not touched her. There
was no stain, no crumpled leaf. She was a fresh wonder, even
after this, out of a chrysalis. It was this amazing newness,
this virginity of blossom from which one could not escape.

The word in my reflection brought me up. How had she escaped
from Barras?

I had more than once in my reflections pivoted on the word.

The great hotel was very nearly deserted when I entered.