When she came to the bedroom a half-hour later, his face was turned to the wall. She spoke, but he did not answer. She thought he was asleep. He was not asleep. He was only thinking how to do the thing which was not obvious, which was also safe for himself. That should be his triumph, if he could but achieve it.
When she came to bed he did not stir, and he did not answer her when she spoke.
“The poor Jean Jacques!” he heard her say, and if there had not been on him the same courage that possessed him the night when the Antoine was wrecked, he would have sobbed.
He did not stir. He kept thinking; and all the time her words, “The poor Jean Jacques!” kept weaving themselves through his vague designs. Why had she said that—she who had deceived, betrayed him? Had he then seen what he had seen?
She did not sleep for a long time, and when she did it was uneasily. But the bed was an immense one, and she was not near him. There was no sleep for him—not even for an hour. Once, in exhaustion, he almost rolled over into the poppies of unconsciousness; but he came back with a start and a groan to sentient life again, and kept feeling, feeling along the wall of purpose for a masterly way to kill.
At dawn it came, suddenly spreading out before him like a picture. He saw himself standing at the head of the flume out there by the Mill Cartier with his hand on the lever. Below him in the empty flume was the master-carpenter giving a last inspection to the repairs. Beyond the master-carpenter—far beyond—was the great mill-wheel! Behind himself, Jean Jacques, was the river held back by the dam; and if the lever was opened,—the river would sweep through the raised gates down the flume to the millwheel—with the man. And then the wheel would turn and turn, and the man would be in the wheel.
It was not obvious; it was original; and it looked safe for Jean Jacques. How easily could such an “accident” occur!
CHAPTER IX. “MOI-JE SUIS PHILOSOPHE”
The air was like a mellow wine, and the light on the landscape was full of wistfulness. It was a thing so exquisite that a man of sentiment like Jean Jacques in his younger days would have wept to see. And the feeling was as palpable as the seeing; as in the early spring the new life which is being born in the year, produces a febrile kind of sorrow in the mind. But the glow of Indian summer, that compromise, that after-thought of real summer, which brings her back for another good-bye ere she vanishes for ever—its sadness is of a different kind. Its longing has a sharper edge; there stir in it the pangs of discontent; and the mind and body yearn for solace. It is a dangerous time, even more dangerous than spring for those who have passed the days of youth.