"You still wear it. To think of that--so loyal for a woman! How she
remembers, holy Mother! . . . But shall I not kiss you, yes, just
once after eight years--my wife?"

She breathed hard and drew back against the wall, dazed and frightened,
and said:

"No, no, do not come near me; do not speak to me--ah, please, stand back,
for a moment--please!"

He shrugged his shoulders slightly, and continued, with mock tenderness:

"To think that things come round so! And here you have a home. But that
is good. I am tired of much travel and life all alone. The prodigal
goes not to the home, the home comes to the prodigal." He stretched up
his arms as if with a feeling of content.

"Do you--do you not know," she said, "that--that--"

He interrupted her:

"Do I not know, Lucy, that this is your home? Yes. But is it not all
the same? I gave you a home ten years ago--to think, ten years ago!
We quarrelled one night, and I left you. Next morning my boat was found
below the White Cascade--yes, but that was so stale a trick! It was not
worthy of Francois Rives. He would do it so much better now; but he was
young then; just a boy, and foolish. Well, sit down, Lucy, it is a long
story, and you have much to tell, how much--who knows?" She came slowly
forward and said with a painful effort: