‘It is all my fault--all!’ he said to Sprats, with bitter self-reproach. ‘I never took care of her as I should have done, as I had vowed to do. You were right, Sprats, in everything that you said to me. I wonder what it is that makes me so blind to things that other people see so clearly? I ought not to have let the poor child be exposed to the temptations of that arch-devil; but I trusted him implicitly. He always made the most sincere professions of his friendship for both of us. Then again, how is it, why is it, that people so constantly deceive me? I believe every man as I expect every man to believe me. Do you think I ever dreamt of all this, ever dreamt of what was in that scoundrel’s mind? Yet I ought to have foreseen--I ought to have been guided by you. It is all my fault, all my fault!’ It was useless to argue with him or to condole with him. He had persuaded himself without an effort that such and such things were, and the only thing to be done with him was to acquiesce in his conclusions and help him as judiciously as possible. The two faithful friends who had hurried to his side remained with him until the troubled waters grew calm again. That was now an affair of time. Haidee was certainly insane, and the physicians held out little hope of her recovery. By their advice she was removed to a private institution within easy distance of Paris, and Lucian announced his intention of settling down in the gay city in order to be near her. He talked of her now as if she had been a girl-bride, snatched away from him by ruthless fate, and it was plain to see that he had obliterated the angry thoughts that had filled him during his frenzy of resentment, and now cherished nothing but feelings of chastened and tender regret. For Haidee, indeed, frailest of frail mortals, became apotheosised into something very different. Lucian, who never did anything by halves and could not avoid extremes, exalted her into a sort of much-wronged saint; she became his dream, and nobody had the heart to wake him.