That impotence to arrive at complete emotion, the martyrdom of egotism to which he had been a victim, his lack of feeling, his barren rancour, his vexation of spirit in solitude and distress, all his moral miseries would have been brought to an end if he had had a simpler heart, if he had understood, if he had believed! He believed in her now, and it was too late. He understood her when she had ceased to be pure. He loved her when she had endured pollution from the endearments of another. He was discovering that he had passed by the side of happiness, now that the enchanted palace which he had traversed without seeing it was closed to him for ever. He was beginning to cherish her, like one dead to whom he could never speak more. But one that is dead remains sheltered from pollutions, and Helen? "All the perfumes of Arabia," he repeated, rubbing his hand like the blood-stained queen. The weight was again on his heart. How could he ever remove it? But what if this remorse were merely a mirage fostered by absence? When children are afraid of a dim form at night, what remedy does their father adopt? He leads them to the object of their terror, and by touching it cures their panic. What if he, too, tried this remedy? What if he saw Helen again, and with his own eyes measured the evil that he had wrought her? "It is the only step that is left to try," he said to himself one day, and he abruptly resolved to return to Paris. He had spent more than six weeks in preying thus upon his heart. CHAPTER XI What a charming and coquettish summer-like Paris Armand passed through in going from the Rue Lincoln to the Rue de La Rochefoucauld on the day after his return! It was two o'clock; a slight breeze was quivering among the green leaves of the trees in the Champs Élysées, and the carriages were driving gaily along. There was a light such as makes all women pretty, but he had darkness within. His memories rose from the pavement to form his melancholy escort, and especially those of that cold winter night when he had passed on foot through the same avenue on the eve of their first secret meeting. An entire year had not passed away since then. How swift is time, and how it carries away chances of happiness with it! Certainly, he had been mournful even to death on that night, but not with the same sadness as to-day, and yet he recognised that to-day's sadness was of higher worth than the other. He would no longer act as he had done. Had, then, his remorse purified while torturing him? Is there, then, a source of ennoblement in sorrow? But of what use is this nobleness if it only serves to show what a criminal use we have made of our powers?