"I am sojourning in a horrible yet magnificent little seaport, where I passively await the command of my destiny. Perhaps Palmer is at Spezzia, three leagues away. That was where we had arranged to meet. And I, like a sulking, or rather like a timid, child, cannot make up my mind to go to him and say: 'Here I am!'--No, no! if he suspects me, no further relations between us are possible! I forgave the other five or six insults a day. With this one I could not overlook the shadow of a suspicion. Is this unjust? No! henceforth I must have a sublime love or nothing! Did I seek his love? He forced it upon me, saying: 'It will be heaven!'--The other had told me that perhaps what he brought me would be hell. He did not deceive me. Nor must Palmer deceive me, while deceiving himself; for, after this new error, nothing would be left for me but to deny everything, to say to myself that, like Laurent, I have forfeited forever, by my own fault, the right to believe; and I do not know whether, with that certainty, I could endure life! "Forgive me, my beloved; my perplexities distress you, I am sure, although you would say that I must spare you none of them! At all events, have no anxiety concerning my health; I am exceedingly well, I have the loveliest bit of ocean before my eyes, and over my head the loveliest sky that can be imagined. I lack nothing, I am boarding with excellent people, and it is likely that I shall write you to-morrow that my uncertainties have disappeared. Do not forget to love your Thérèse, who adores you." Palmer had actually been at Spezzia since the preceding night. He had purposely arrived just an hour after the sailing of the _Ferruccio_. Not finding Thérèse at the _Maltese Cross_, and learning that she had planned to put Laurent on board at the mouth of the bay, he awaited her return. At nine o'clock, the boatman she had hired in the morning, who belonged to the hotel, returned alone. The worthy man was not accustomed to drink too much. He had been _surprised_ by a bottle of Cyprus, which Laurent gave him after his lunch on the grass with Thérèse, and which he drank during their stay on the Isola Palmaria; so that he remembered well enough that he had put the signor and signora aboard the _Ferruccio_, but had no remembrance of having afterward taken the signora to Porto Venere. If Palmer had questioned him calmly, he would soon have discovered that the man's ideas were not very clear on the latter point; but the American, notwithstanding his serious and impassive manner, was very irritable and very passionate. He believed that Thérèse had gone with Laurent, gone shamefacedly, afraid or unwilling to confess the truth to him. He was thoroughly convinced, and returned to the hotel, where he passed a terrible night.