"I am indifferent neither to Thérèse's sorrows nor to yours," replied Palmer. "But I spare you advice or reproaches which come too late. I believed that you were made for each other; I am persuaded, now, that the greatest, yes, the only happiness that you can confer upon each other is to part. As to my personal feelings for Thérèse, I do not admit your right to question me, and as for those sentiments which, in your judgment, I might succeed in arousing in her, you no longer have the right, after what you have said, to express such a supposition in my presence, much less in hers." "That is true," rejoined Laurent, nonchalantly, "and I understand very well what it means. I see that I shall be in the way here now, and I think that I shall do as well to leave Genoa, in order not to embarrass any one." He did, in fact, carry out his threat, after a very cold farewell to Thérèse, and went straight to Florence, with the intention of plunging into society or work, according to his caprice. It was exceedingly pleasant to him to say to himself: "I will do whatever comes into my head, and there will be no one to suffer and be anxious about me. It is the worst of tortures, when a man is no more evilly disposed than I am, to have a victim constantly before one's eyes. Come, I am free at last, and the evil that I may do will fall on myself alone!" Doubtless, Thérèse was wrong not to let him see the depth of the wound he had inflicted on her. She was too brave and too proud. Since she had undertaken the cure of a desperately diseased nature, she should not have recoiled from heroic remedies and painful operations. She should have made that frenzied heart bleed freely, have overwhelmed him with reproaches, and repaid insult with insult and stab with stab. If he had seen the suffering he had caused, perhaps Laurent would have done justice to himself. Perhaps shame and repentance would have saved his soul from the crime of murdering love in cold blood. But, after three months of fruitless efforts, Thérèse was disheartened. Did she owe such absolute devotion to a man whom she had never desired to enslave, who had forced himself upon her despite her grief and her melancholy forebodings, who had clung to her steps like an abandoned child, and had cried to her: "Take me under your wing, protect me, or I shall die here by the roadside!" And now that child cursed her for yielding to his outcries and his tears. He accused her of having taken advantage of his weakness to deprive him of the joys of liberty. He turned his back upon her, drawing a long breath, and exclaiming: "At last, at last!"