The Death-Fires of Les Martigues by Thomas A. Janvier

"God keep you from the she-wolf, and from your heart's deep desire!"

My mother's words kept on ringing in my ears after I had left her. Suddenly the haze was gone and I saw clearly -- and I knew that my heart's deep desire was to have Magali for my very own. And with that sudden coming of clear sight I knew, too, that I could have her. Out of the past came a crowd of memories which proved it to me. In my dull way, I say, I had fancied that I loved Magali as a sister, and I had tried to keep that fancy always by me in my haze. But with the haze gone -- swept away by my mother's words as the mistral sweeps away our Mediterranean fogs -- I knew that Magali never had been the fool that I had been.