“No,” she said with strange energy. “It is not worth the trouble. It is better that I should never see you again. It was to return him this letter he sent me to-day—see to what address,” and she held out the envelope on which I could see the name of Tournade and the Rue Lincoln; she added in a voice which was less firm: “I wished to ask him not to write to me nor seek for me again, either there or elsewhere, as I am no longer free.” Then followed another period of silence, after which she got up and offered me her hand, saying— “I will send him back the letter myself through the post. It will be better. Now, Vincent, good-bye, and a pleasant trip. You will remember me, will you not, and not judge me too harshly. Come, give me a kiss, as we shall not see one another again till God knows when!” As I pressed my lips upon her cheek I felt through her veil that it was moist with tears. Not another word was spoken between us. I could not find a question to ask her. She did not think of a plaint to make. Even at the deathbeds of those I loved most I have never said a good-bye which has cost me more. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XI Yes, it was a sad and rending farewell! I must, too, have been plunged into the depths of melancholy in my heart, for as I wrote the account of it I sprinkled the paper with my tears; and now I feel that I have hardly the strength to take up my pen again to add to this real romance the sinister epilogue, the suggestive irony of which alone decided me to write these pages. Twenty-five months and an absence of that length have not healed my secret wound. It is still open and bleeding at the recollection simply of Camille’s cheek moist with those vain tears beneath my farewell kiss, the first and last I ever placed on that charming face which was now profaned for ever. Yet if absence and silence are the two great remedies for those passions without hope and desire, one of which my strange sentiment for this poor girl was, I can do myself the justice to say that I sincerely practised them. Those twenty-five months appeared to me so short, so short when compared with those few weeks spent in following hour by hour the fatal march of the deceived mistress towards despair, and the rest without trying to prevent it.