At that moment we were interrupted by the appearance of Madame Coutras,who had been paying visits.She came in,like a ship in full sail,an imposing creature,tall and stout,with an ample bust and an obesity girthed in alarmingly by straightfronted corsets.She had a bold hooked nose and three chins.She held herself upright.She had not yielded for an instant to the enervating charm of the tropics,but contrariwise was more active,more worldly,more decided than anyone in a temperate clime would have thought it possible to be.She was evidently a copious talker,and now poured forth a breathless stream of anecdote and comment.She made the conversation we had just had seem far away and unreal.

　　Presently Dr Coutras turned to me.

　　‘I still have in my bureau the picture that Strickland gave me’,he said.‘Would you like to see it?’

　　‘Willingly.’

　　We got up,and he led me on to the veranda which surrounded his house.We paused to look at the gay flowers that rioted in his garden.

　　‘For a long time I could not get out of my head the recollection of......