"Yes, it has been in my mind often—often," she said. "It's a horrible thought," he gravely replied; "but it is better to be frank. Still, you'll never do it, Alice—you'll never dare to do it."
"Dare, dare," she answered, springing to her feet, and a shuddering sigh broke from her. "The thing itself is easy enough, Tom."
"And why haven't you done it?" he asked in a hard voice, but still calmly.
She leaned one hand upon the table, the other lay at her cheek, and her head bent forward at him. "Because," she answered, "because I have tried to be thoughtful for you."
"Oh, as to that," he said—"as to that!" and he shrugged his shoulders slightly.
"You don't care a straw," she said sharply, "you never did."
He looked up suddenly at her, a great bitterness in his face, and laughed strangely, as he answered: "Care! Good God! Care! . . . What's the use of caring? It's been all a mistake; all wrong."
"That is no news," she said wearily. "You discovered that long ago."
He looked out of the door across the warm fields again; he lifted his eyes to that mountain road; he looked down at her. "I haven't any hope left now, Alice. Let's be plain with each other. We've always been plain, but let us be plainer still. There are those rice fields out there, that banana plantation, and the sugar-cane stretching back as far as the valley goes—it's all mine, all mine. I worked hard for it. I had only one wish with it all, one hope through it all, and it was, that when I brought you here as my wife, you would come to love me—some time. Well, I've waited, and waited. It hasn't come. We're as far apart to- day as we were the day I married you. Farther, for I had hope then, but I've no hope now, none at all."
They both turned towards the intemperate sunlight and the great hill. The hollowness of life as they lived it came home to them with an aching force. Yet she lifted her fan from the table and fanned herself gently with it, and he mechanically lit a cigar. Servants passed in and out removing the things from the table. Presently they were left alone. The heavy breath of the palm trees floated in upon them; the fruit of the passion-flower hung temptingly at the window; they could hear the sound of a torrent just behind the house. The day was droning luxuriously, yet the eyes of both, as by some weird influence, were fastened upon the hill; and presently they saw, at the highest point where the road was visible, a horseman. He came slowly down until he reached the spot where the road was barricaded from the platform of the cliff. Here he paused. He sat long, looking, as it appeared, down into the valley. The husband rose and took down a field-glass from a shelf; he levelled it at the figure.