"There's no time to waste," she continued. "You spoke of farewells--twice
you spoke, and three times he spoke of farewells between us.
Farewells--farewells--George--!"
With sudden emotion she held out her arms, and her face flushed with
passion and longing.
The tempest which shook her shook him also, and he swayed from side to
side like an animal uncertain if the moment had come to try its strength
with its foe; and in truth the man was fighting with himself. His moments
with Jean Jacques at the flume had expanded him in a curious kind of way.
His own arguments while he was fighting for his life had, in a way,
convinced himself. She was a rare creature, and she was alluring--more
alluring than she had ever been; for a tragic sense had made her thinner,
had refined the boldness of her beauty, had given a wonderful lustre to
her eyes; and suffering has its own attraction to the degenerate. But he,
George Masson, had had a great shock, and he had come out of the jaws of
death by the skin of his teeth. It had been the nearest thing he had ever
known; for though once he had had a pistol pointed at him, there was the
chance that it might miss at half-a-dozen yards, while there was no
chance of the lever of the flume going wrong; and water and a mill-wheel
were as absolute as the rope of the gallows.
In a sense he had saved himself by his cleverness, but if Jean Jacques
had not been just the man he was, he could not have saved himself.
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