He stood for a long time motionless, gazing down at her with infinite sadness. The struggle had exhausted him. He found himself full of bitterness and disgust. She was his first love, his first real love, and that passion to which the innocent heart brings so much freshness and of which it retains so sweet a memory, had brought him in the end nothing but rancor and hate. All his life his lips would retain a slight curl of disenchantment and his soul the impression of a scar. She breathed more easily and opened her eyes. At once he felt an irresistible urge never to see her again, never even to think of her. Opening the window, he listened. He fancied that he heard hurrying steps from the direction of the shore. Leonard must have discovered, on reaching the beach, that all the fruits of the expedition had been the capture of a dummy, and doubtless, anxious about Josephine, he was returning to help her. “Let him find her here; let him carry her away!” he said to himself. “Let her die or let her live! Let her be happy or unhappy! I don’t care a rap. I don’t want to hear anything more about her. Enough of this hell!” And without a word, without a glance at the woman who held out her hands and implored him not to leave her, he went away. Next morning he paid a visit to Clarice. In order not to reopen wounds which he knew must be so very painful, he had not yet seen her again. But she had known that he was there; and at once he perceived that time had already done its work. A warmer color mantled her cheeks; her eyes were shining with hope. “Clarice,” he said to her, “from the very first day you promised to forgive me everything.” “I have nothing to forgive you, Ralph,” she said, with the remembrance of her father’s crimes in her mind. “Yes you have, Clarice. I have hurt you cruelly,” he protested. “I have hurt myself very little less; and it is not only your love that I ask but also your care and your protection. I need you to help me to forget horrible memories, to restore my confidence in life, and to combat many ugly qualities in me which urge me to a path I do not wish to tread. With your help I am sure I can be honest; I am certainly going to try hard. And I promise you that you shall be happy. Will you be my wife?” She held out her hand. _EPILOGUE_ As Ralph had supposed all the vast network of intrigue woven to acquire the legendary treasure was never brought to the light of day. The suicide of Beaumagnan; the crimes of Madam Pellegrini, the mysterious personality of the Countess of Cagliostro, her flight, the shipwreck of the _Glow-worm_, all these divers facts, Justice could not, or would not, link together. The memorandum of the Cardinal Bishop was destroyed, or disappeared. The associates of Beaumagnan disbanded and did not speak. The world knew nothing.