irrevocable making up of his own mind.

"But what for?" cried the lady. "You were not even born there. Your
father died thirty years ago--you will not even find his tomb. Your dear
mother left the place in horror, just before you were born. Besides, you
promised her that you would never return to Corsica--and she who has been
dead only five years! Is it filial, I ask you, my cousin? Is it filial?"

"Such a promise, of course, only held good during her lifetime," answered
Lory. "Since there is no one left behind to be anxious on my account, it
is assuredly no one's affair whether I go or stay."

"And now you are asking me to say it will break my heart if you go," said
the baroness, with a gay glance of her brown eyes; "and you may ask--and
ask!"

She shook hands as she spoke.

"Go, ingratitude!" she said. "But tell me, what will bring you back?"

"War," he answered, with a laugh, pausing for a moment on the threshold.

And three days later Lory de Vasselot stood on the deck of a small
trading steamer that rolled sideways into Calvi Bay, on the shoulder, as
it were, of one of those March mistrals which serve as the last kick of
the dying winter. De Vasselot had taken the first steamer he could find
at Marseilles, with a fine disregard for personal comfort, which was part
of his military training and parcel of his sporting instincts. He was,
like many islanders, a good sailor, for, strange as it may seem, a man
may inherit from his forefathers not only a taste for the sea, but a