Was she indeed capable of kindling this lamp in the desert? Out of those dead ashes of passion, could Love the Immortal indeed be made to rise?
She sat for a long time and pondered--pondered.
When, an hour later, she went down the hill to the town, the day was brilliant and the sky without a cloud. The sea was one glorious sheet of blue that seemed to stretch away limitless into Infinity.
Down by the quay a white yacht rocked at her moorings. She marked it with a throbbing heart. Why, oh why, did he linger? She yearned to thrust him for ever out of her life.
She reached the Anchor Hotel and entered. The bareness of the place smote cold upon the senses. She passed through it quickly and went up to her mother's room.
"Oh, my dear, at last!" Querulously Mrs. Sheppard greeted her. "Shut the door and come in! Charlie is watching for you. He will be over directly."
She was clad in an old pink wrapper, and kneeling before a half-filled trunk.
Maud stood still in the doorway, every spark of animation gone out of her. "Mother, what are you doing? What do you mean?"
Her voice sounded frozen and devoid of all emotion. Her fingers were clenched rigidly upon the handle of the door. She stared at her mother with eyes that were suddenly stony.
"What do you mean?" she repeated.