after five years. He went alone. He rode his horse through the narrow,
brush-grown path by which had gone the stranger who had seen the naked
girl, at the edge of the woodland pool, five years before. And he came,
at length, to the edge of the wood, and to the clearing where lay the
little hut, smoky, dirty, littered.

He dismounted from his horse, there, why, he did not know. He went
forward, to the hut.

An old woman, bent, white haired, sat on a rude chair, in the sun, beside
the door. She looked up as he approached. She, in no way, heeded the
elaborate bow that he made--a graceful bow, low and sweeping, and yet a
salutation sarcastic.

"_Bon jour_, madame," he began. "Madame looks well; but Death is
never far from the aged.... It should be a consolation," looking about
him, casually, "for one who lives as madame."

The shrivelled old woman made no answer.

The man went on, evenly, the while tapping; with the end of his slender
crop a booted leg:

"_Eh bien_, I have come, as you see. The paternal passion will not
down in the breast of a man domestically inclined." He laughed. "I have
been going about, seeing my families," he smiled. "It has been
interesting--drolly interesting. _Ma foi_!" Yet again he laughed,
musically. "There have been pleadings, and revilings--tears, and curses--
bended knees, and unbended arms." He indicated with a graceful gesture a
deep cut upon the back of his left hand. "It was a woman--a very pretty