He knew well enough that the fault lay somewhere within himself.  She was as she had ever been, but he lacked the strength to rise to her.  Why?  Why?  He searched himself with a desperate earnestness, but he could find no answer to his questioning.  In himself, as in her, there had come no change.  She was still to him all that she ever had been—­the star of his destiny, the pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day, to guide him on his path.  Where, then, the fine, pure fervor that should, at thought of her, whirl him on high and make a god of him?

He stood wrapped in bewilderment and despair, for he could find no answer.

In plain words, in commonplace black-and-white, the man’s anguish has an over-fanciful, a well-nigh absurd look, but to Ste. Marie the thing was very real and terrible, as real and as terrible as, to a half-starved monk in his lonely cell, the sudden failure of the customary exaltation of spirit after a night’s long prayer.

He went, after a time, back to the bed, and lay down there with one upflung arm across his eyes to shut out the light.  He was filled with a profound dejection and a sense of hopelessness.  Through all the long week of his imprisonment he had been cheerful, at times even gay.  However evil his case might have looked, his elastic spirits had mounted above all difficulties and cares, confident in the face of apparent defeat.  Now at last he lay still, bruised, as it were, and battered and weary.  The flame of courage burned very low in him.  From sheer exhaustion he fell after a time into a troubled sleep, but even there the enemy followed him and would not let him rest.  He seemed to himself to be in a place of shadows and fears.  He strained his eyes to make out above him the bright, clear star of guidance, for so long as that shone he was safe; but something had come between—­cloud or mist—­and his star shone dimly in fitful glimpses.

* * * * *

On the next morning he went out once more with the old Michel into the garden.  He went with a stronger heart, for the morning had renewed his courage, as bright, fresh mornings do.  From the anguish of the day before he held himself carefully aloof.  He kept his mind away from all thought of it, and gave his attention to the things about him.  It would return, doubtless, in the slow, idle hours; he would have to face it again and yet again; he would have to contend with it; but for the present he put it out of his thoughts, for there were things to do.

It was no more than human of him—­and certainly it was very characteristic of Ste. Marie—­that he should be half glad and half disappointed at not finding Coira O’Hara in her place at the rond point.  It left him free to do what he wished to do—­make a careful reconnaissance of the whole garden enclosure—­but it left him empty of something he had, without conscious thought, looked forward to.