they had asked her about me, and she had replied
that she had seen nothing of me since we landed the night before.
Perhaps I had caught a cold on the excursion!

"'_Une femme est un diable!_'

"But on the third day, when, after pondering on this profound saying, I
issued forth again, anxious to see whether she would maintain her
calmness in my presence too, I heard that she had gone away by the
first steamer that morning--no one knew whither.

"This was my last day on the island. About noon I received the sad
message that called me home. With the evening boat I left the scene of
this vile farce, the bitter memory of which did not fade from my
thoughts for long years afterward.

"It is true the days of mourning that awaited me at home, and then soon
afterward the only true passion of my life, helped me to consign what
had happened to the dim realm of the past--until it rose up before me
this evening in all the horror of the present, and I was made to see
that the penance I supposed I had satisfied by my separation from Irene
was now demanded of me for the first time; and that the happiness of my
whole life was to be the price of a guilt which I thought I had long
since outlived.

"For as to this open confession, which would be sufficient, if produced
before any court, to give you back the freedom you so long for--I know
you too well not to feel sure that you will never make use of it.
Therefore, you too will continue in chains, and I--how I should despise
myself if, with this hellish laughter of Nemesis ringing in my ears, I
should appear again before the dear girl I had so recently recovered,
and should offer myself as a fitting husband, while you and Julie were
obliged, by my guilt, to remain separated, at least before the world!
The fact that I have to suffer more than I sinned does not in the least
change the question.

"It has always been the custom of Divine justice to make use of
different scales and different weights and measures, in exacting its
dues. The sin that one man is scarcely made to expiate by a
disagreeable hour costs another his own happiness and the happiness of
all those dear to him!

"And now I have said all that I had to say. I shall refer Irene, to
whom I have merely sent a short note, to you, in case she should insist
upon learning the true reason why I am forced to leave her anew--and
this time forever--without looking on her face again. Perhaps if I did
I should not have the courage-