The memory of that charm, to which he yielded himself so completely, augmented his self-reproach. He recalled his imprudent actions, so natural when one does not feel one's self to be observed, but which appear to be such faults as soon as one is conscious of suspicion. For example, during the ten days on which the Baroness was absent from Cannes he had not once returned to those places where he had gone simply for the sake of seeing her. No one had met him at the golf field, nor at any evening party, nor at any five o'clock tea. He had not even made a call. Could this coincidence of his retirement with the absence of the Baroness have failed to be remarked? What had been said about it? Since his love had drawn him into this agitated world of pleasure he had often been pained by the light words thrown out at hazard at the women of this society, when they were not present. Had he been simply an object of ridicule, or had they taken advantage of his conduct to calumniate the woman he loved with a love so unhappy, ravaged by all the chimeras of remorse? The words used by Florence Marsh--"your flirt"--gave a solid basis to these hypotheses. He had always despised the things which this word implied,--that shameful familiarity of a woman with a man, that dangling of her beauty before his desire, all the vulgarity and indiscretion which this equivocal relationship suggests. Could they think that he had such relations with Madame de Carlsberg? Had this evil interpretation been put upon his impulsiveness? Then he thought of the sorrows which he divined in the life of this unique woman, of the espionage that was spoken of, and again the hall at Monte Carlo appeared to him, and he could not understand why he had not realized the prodigious indelicacy of his action. He felt it now with most pitiful acuteness. Haunted by these thoughts he prolonged his walk for hours and hours, and when in the twilight, suddenly grown dark and cold, as it happens in the South after days most soft and blue, as he entered the door of his hotel, the concierge handed him a letter on which he recognized the writing of Baroness Ely, his hands trembled as he tore open the envelope, sealed with the imprint of an antique stone--the head of Medusa. And if the head of this pagan legend had appeared alive before him he would not have been more overwhelmed than he was by the simple words of this note:-- "DEAR SIR--I have returned to Cannes and I should be happy if you could come to-morrow, at about half-past one, to the Villa Helmholtz. I wish to talk with you upon a serious matter. That is why I set this hour, at which I am most certain of not being interrupted."