"If so," she said trustfully, "would not her boy come back?" He had just time to buy his ticket and gain the platform. He folded her in his arms, and exchanged one long, sobbing kiss. It seemed to Ralph Flare that the sound of that kiss was like a spell--the breaking of the pleasantest link in his life--the passing from sinfulness to a baser selfishness--the stamp and seal upon his bargain with ambition, whereby for the long future he was sold to the sorrow of avarice and the deceitfulness of fame. There was a sharp whistle from the locomotive--who invented that whistle to pierce so many bosoms at parting?--the cars moved one by one till the last, in which he was seated, sprang forward with a jerk; and though she was quite blind, he saw her handkerchief waving till all had vanished, and he would have given the world to have shed one tear. He has gone on into the free country, and to-night he will sleep under the shadow of the mountains. She has turned back into the dark city, and she will not sleep at all in her far-up chamber. It is only one heart crushed, and thousands that deserve more sympathy beat out every day. We only notice this one because it shall lie bleeding, and get no sympathy at all. PART VII. DISSOLVING VIEW. That he might not meet with his own countrymen, Ralph halted at Milan, and in the great deserted gallery of the Brera went steadily to work. If, as it often happened, Suzette's pale face got between him and the canvas, he mentioned his own name and said "renown," and took a turn in the remote corridor where young Raphael's _Sposializo_ hung opposite that marvel of Guercino's--poor Hagar and her boy Ishmael driven abroad. These adjuncts and the fiercer passion of self had their effect. He never wrote to Suzette, but sent secretly for his baggage, and was well pleased with the consciousness that he could forget her. After three months he set out for Florence and studied the masterpieces of Andrea del Sarto, and tried his hand at the _Flora_ of Titian. He went into society somewhat, and was very much afraid his unworthy conduct in Paris might be bruited abroad. Indeed, he could hardly forgive himself the fondness he had known, and came to regard Suzette as a tolerably bad person, who had bewitched him. He burned all her letters, and a little lock of hair he had clipped while she was asleep once, and blotted the whole experience out of his diary. The next Sunday he went to hear the Rev. Mr. Hall preach, and felt quite consoled. The summer fell upon Val d'Arno like the upsetting of a Tuscan _Scaldino_, and Ralph Flare regretfully took his departure northward. All the world was going to Paris--why not he? Was he afraid? Certainly not; it had been a great victory over temptation to stay away so long. He would carry out the triumph by braving a return.