H. De Vere Stacpoole

“ If a ferret were trained for the purpose there is not a village where it would not dig you out at least one specimen of this tribe more or less perfect. Marie Rimbaut was perfect; she saw and recorded the whole of the Ribot story without putting out a hand to warn the protagonists, content to watch till the first snip of the scissors of Atropos.
Carstairs turned into the little shop to buy his cigarettes, found Marianne behind the counter and remained half an hour. ”

“ It had suddenly come to rest—that which a moment before had been all wings suddenly becoming all eyes; come to rest swaying on the wind that moved the corn-stalk, astonished by the vision that had come so close, seeing everything but the poppies that nature so carefully hides amid the corn. ”

“ Her love for Carstairs, the fact that he had betrayed her, and the fact that she had betrayed Marianne—by making an appointment with him to meet him on the road of the palms that fatal evening before he left. Marianne remembered how late it was that night before Cerise returned, saying she had been with friends; and she had believed the story because Cerise never lied.
The letter went on to say much more: how he had kissed her by mistake on that first day of their meeting; how she had grown to love him and fight against her passion for the sake of Marianne ”

“ Much will love more; at all events it is ever anxious to keep itself intact, and Carstairs, who had been indifferent to money when he had none, became fretful now over the loss of a few dollars and sleepless over some depreciation that would not have kept an ordinary business man awake. ”

“ From Sydney the ship went to San Francisco and from San Francisco to Honolulu, at least toward Honolulu, for she was wrecked on that voyage and of all her company only Carstairs and half a dozen others were saved and taken to Chile, where great luck waited for him. One of the saved passengers, a woman very wealthy and with vast interests in the Islands, fell in love with him and married him and died a month after the marriage, leaving him a rich man, but tied. Wealth is not all jam. ”

“ Shares that had depreciated in value and were likely to depreciate more, a lawsuit in the egg over some lands in California, a suit to upset the will, which was frantically absurd, yet irritating; interests everywhere that had to be looked after and papers in legions that had to be signed, including American income-tax papers, the most appalling documents ever devised by the wit of man for man’s distraction. ”

“ But to me the interest of the whole business lies in the question: did she stab that man to revenge Cerise or herself? And also in the thought that Monsieur Carstairs, who was responsible for the death of Cerise, had, to his own knowledge, never even seen the girl. He had heard Marianne speak of her sister, but as they were never in the shop together he did not know of the extraordinary likeness.
“To this day, if he is alive, Monsieur Carstairs does not know that he is responsible for a woman’s death. ”

“ To a Frenchman or an Englishman two, shall we say, Japanese women will look pretty much alike; but if there exists a real likeness between two eastern women, even though it is not very strong to their fellows, a Westerner will be unable to distinguish between them; he will be unable to distinguish the little differences that count so much. It was so with the Ribot girls. ”

“ He will not know till the judgment comes; and that is a thought to give one pause, for does any man know his full account or the consequences of his sins?”
Later that day, toward evening, finding myself in the Rue Austerlitz I went into the Maison Ribot out of curiosity and to buy a packet of cigarettes. Marianne was behind the counter looking just the same as when I had seen her passing Roche’s restaurant, but sane enough in her business methods and making not a centime’s mistake in the change. ”

“ He had told Marianne the name of his ship because in a small port like Noumea to have told a lie might have meant being found out; but he had also told her that it would not leave for some months as it would have to wait for repairs. In the meantime money for which he had cabled to England would arrive and they could get married and the ship get another second mate. So sure was Marianne in her faith that it was not till the third day of his absence that she made inquiries and found the Hawk gone. Mother Rimbaut sent down among the people of the quayside and obtained details. ”

“ Passion Fruit
A Grim Chapter from the South Seas. Carstairs Loves and Forgets, but the Girl—Never
By H. De Vere Stacpoole
Miles and miles of coral reef, foam-dashed, and flown about by gulls—beyond the reef the hills and highlands of Paradise engraved on a sky of azure; a tall white lighthouse like a ghost in the smoky blue of the sea.
That is New Caledonia as you see it coming up from Sydney or Brisbane, and the lighthouse marks the entry to the harbor of Noumea.
For long years France exported to this Paradise all the evil passions of man done up in the form of convicts ”

“ Some of the descendants of the old deportees are good citizens, some are not. Monsieur Roche, who kept and maybe still keeps a restaurant in the Rue Marengo, which opens off Coconut Square, was quite open with me on this point. ”