"Ah, madame," he answered, "you are afraid of being hard on me when you have the right to be so severe. What I wish to assure you of at the start is that your reproaches could not equal my self-reproach! Yes," he continued, in a tone of passionate remorse, "after what I have seen and understood, how can I ever forgive myself for having caused you an annoyance, even were it but the slightest. I understand it all. I know (from an anonymous letter that came with yours) that what I did the night before last was seen,--my purchase of the case which you had just sold. I know that you have been told of it, and I may divine what you think. I do not ask you to pardon an indiscretion whose gravity I should have felt at once. But then I didn't think. I saw the merchant take that case, which I had seen you use so often. The thought of that object, associated with your image in my mind--the thought of its being sold the next day in a shop of that horrible locality, and being bought, perhaps, by one of those frightful women like those around me near the table--yes, this idea was too strong for my prudence, too strong for my duty of reserve regarding you. You see, I do not attempt to justify myself. But perhaps I have the right to assure you that even in my thoughtless indiscretion there was still a respect for you." "I have never doubted your delicacy," said Madame de Carlsberg. She had been moved to the bottom of her heart by this naïve supplication. She felt so keenly the contrast of his youth and tenderness with the brutal manners of the Prince a quarter of an hour before in this same place. And then, as she had recognized the hand of Louise Brion in the anonymous letter, she was touched by that secret proof of friendship, and she attempted to bring the conversation to the point which her faithful friend had so strongly urged--timid and fruitless effort now to conceal the trouble in her eyes, the involuntary sigh that heaved her breast, the trembling of her heart in her voice. "No," she repeated, "I have never doubted it. But you know yourself the malice of the world, and you see by the letter that was written to you that your action was observed." "They will not write to me twice," the young man interrupted. "It was not only from that letter that I understood the world's malice and ferocity. What I perceived still more plainly a few moments ago," he added, with that melancholy firmness which holds back the tears of farewell, "was that my duty is clear now. My indiscretion the night before last, and others that I might commit, it is happily in my power to redeem, and I have come to tell you simply, madame, that I am going; going," he repeated. "I shall leave Cannes, and if you permit me to hope that I may gain your esteem by doing this I shall leave, not happy, but less sad."