Not till breakfast was over did he mention the letters, and then only because I took the opportunity of handing them back to him. He seemed afraid that I might discuss them with him; he told me that he didn't want me ever to mention them; but that he hoped they had made me realize. What he hoped they had made me realize he didn't say, but I presumed he meant his own overwhelming guilt.... But he wouldn't discuss the matter further. The thing of immediate importance, he said, was the letter to Helen that he was going to write. I seized the opportunity then of giving him a straight talk about his health. I told him frankly that he seemed to me to be on the verge of a serious breakdown, and rather to my surprise he didn't indignantly deny it. He even admitted that he had been working too hard and that he needed a holiday. "I'll take one," he said, "as soon as all this business is settled. I'll go to Salzburg or Ischl or somewhere--Mizzi will advise me...." He smiled his familiar half-smile and added: "You needn't worry--_I_ shall be all right." He didn't mention his work, and when I ventured a remark, he said: "Just now--for the time--I can't think of it. That's why I daresay you're right--I _do_ need a rest.... But before I have it, I must earn it--I must undo, if I can, some of the harm I've done...." Soon after that I left him to compose his letter to Helen. It was something, at any rate, that he had agreed to take a holiday, but Mizzi, when I told her, was less impressed. "He has promised scores of times," she said, "but always--at the last moment--there has been an excuse." The morning dragged on, and then literally, as well as metaphorically, came the clouds. It was raining hard at mid-day, and when I went up to his room I found him with a blank writing-pad in front of him and weariness in his eyes. For two hours he had been trying to write, and not a word would come--not a word. Nor could I help him. The more I pondered, the more impossible seemed the idea of writing to her at all. And yet, for his own sake, it was necessary, his only hope lay in supposing that he could undo what he believed himself to have done. I urged him not to worry about it--to leave it for a while, at any rate. And he turned to me then with a look of sad finality and replied: "But you see, it must--it _must_--catch to-night's mail...."