She had slipped out of life a few months later, and as she lay
dying she had used a very curious expression: "My faithful companion is
calling me," she had said to her only child, "and you must not try, dear
son, to make me linger on the way." Now, to-day, Jacques de Wissant asked himself with perplexed pain and
anger, why it was that his parents had led so peaceful, so dignified, so
wholly contented a married life, while he himself----? And yet his own marriage had been a love match--or so those about him
had all said with nods and smiles--love marriages having suddenly become
the fashion in the rich provincial world of which he had then been one
of the heirs-apparent. His old-fashioned mother would have preferred as daughter-in-law any one
of half a dozen girls who belonged to her own good town of Falaise, and
whom she had known from childhood. But Jacques had been difficult to
please, and he was already thirty-two when he had met, by a mere chance,
Claire de Kergouët at her first ball. She was only seventeen, with but
the promise of a beauty which was now in exquisite flower, and he had
decided, there and then, in the course of two hours, that this
demoiselle de Kergouët was alone worthy of becoming Madame Jacques de
Wissant. And on the whole his prudent parents had blessed his choice, for the
girl was of the best Breton stock, and came of a family famed in the
naval annals of France. Unluckily Claire de Kergouët had had no dowry to
speak of, for her father, the Admiral, had been a spendthrift, and, as
is still the reckless Breton fashion, father of a large family--three
daughters and four sons. But Jacques de Wissant had not allowed his
parents to give the matter of Claire's fortune more than a regretful
thought--indeed, he had done further, he had "recognized" a larger dowry
than she brought him to save the pride of her family. But Claire--he could not help thinking of it to-day with a sense of
bitter injury--had never seemed grateful, had never seemed to understand
all that had been done for her....

Had he not poured splendid gifts upon her in the beginning of their
married life? And, what had been far more difficult, had he not, within
reason, contented all her strange whims and fantasies? But nought had availed him to secure even a semblance of that steadfast,
warm affection, that sincere interest and pride in his concerns which is
all such a Frenchman as was Jacques de Wissant expects, or indeed
desires, of his wedded wife. Had Claire been such a woman, Jacques' own
passion for her would soon have dulled into a reasonable, comfortable
affection. But his wife's cool aloofness had kept alive the hidden
fires, the more--so ironic are the tricks which sly Dame Nature
plays--that for many years past he had troubled her but very little with
his company. Outwardly Claire de Wissant did her duty, entertaining his friends and
relations on such occasions as was incumbent on her, and showing
herself a devoted and careful mother to the twin daughters who formed
the only vital link between her husband and herself. But inwardly? Inwardly they two were strangers. And yet only during the last few months had Jacques de Wissant ever felt
jealous of his wife. There had been times when he had been angered by
the way in which her young beauty, her indefinable, mysterious charm,
had attracted the very few men with whom she was brought into contact. But Claire, so her husband had always acknowledged to himself, was no
flirt; she was ever perfectly "correct." Correct was a word dear to Jacques de Wissant. It was one which he used
as a synonym for great things--things such as honour, fineness of
conduct, loyalty. But fate had suddenly introduced a stranger into the dull, decorous life
of the Pavillon de Wissant, and it was he, Jacques himself, who had
brought him there. How bitter it was to look back and remember how much he had liked--liked
because he had respected--Commander Dupré! He now hated and feared the
naval officer, and he would have given much to have been able to despise
him. But that Jacques de Wissant could not do. Commander Dupré was still
all that he had taken him to be when he first made him free of his
house--a brilliant officer, devoted to his profession, already noted in
the Service as having made several important improvements in submarine
craft. From the first it had seemed peculiar, to Jacques de Wissant's mind
unnatural, that such a man as was Dupré should be so keenly interested
in music and in modern literature. But so it was, and it had been owing
to these strange, untoward tastes that Commander Dupré and Claire had
become friends. He now reminded himself, for the hundredth time, that he had begun by
actually approving of the acquaintance between his wife and the naval
officer--an acquaintance which he had naturally supposed would be of the
most "correct" nature. Then, without warning, there came an hour--nay, a moment, when in that
twilight hour which the French call "'Twixt dog and wolf," the most
torturing and shameful of human passions, jealousy, had taken possession
of Jacques de Wissant, disintegrating, rather than shattering, the
elaborate fabric of his House of Life, that house in which he had always
dwelt so snugly and unquestioningly ensconced. He had come home after a long afternoon spent at the Hôtel de Ville to
learn with tepid pleasure that there was a visitor, Commander Dupré, in
the house, and as he had come hurrying towards his wife's boudoir,
Jacques had heard Claire's low, deep voice and the other's ardent, eager
tones mingling together....

And then as he, the husband, had opened the door, they had stopped
speaking, their words clipped as if a sword had fallen between them. At
the same moment a servant had brought a lamp into the twilit room, and
Jacques had seen the ravaged face of Commander Dupré, a fair, tanned
face full of revolt and of longing leashed. Claire had remained in
shadow, but her eyes, or so the interloper thought he perceived, were
full of tears. Since that spring evening the Mayor of Falaise had not had an easy
moment. While scorning to act the spy upon his wife, he was for ever
watching her, and keeping an eager and yet scarcely conscious count of
her movements. True, Commander Dupré had soon ceased to trouble the owner of the
Pavillon de Wissant by his presence. The younger officers came and went,
but since that hour, laden with unspoken drama, their commander only
came when good breeding required him to pay a formal call on his nearest
neighbour and sometime host. But Claire saw Dupré constantly at the
Châlet des Dunes, her sister's house, and she was both too proud and too
indifferent, it appeared, to her husband's view of what a young married
woman's conduct should be, to conceal the fact. This openness on his wife's part was at once Jacques' consolation and
opportunity for endless self-torture.