She was still his only window on the outside world. That was the trouble. By her expression he read his own decline more surely than in his mirror. Through her he saw the world; through her, too, he saw what manner of figure he presented to the world. Never had he realised how far he had sunk until this moment. He saw, as in a picture, the young schoolmaster of the other days who had read French with the pupil, who was more his teacher than his pupil, upon the garden terrace of the Villa Pontignard--a youth full of dreams, which were vain, no doubt, but not ignoble. There was a trifle of achievement, too. For even now one of the tattered books upon his shelf was a copy of his brochure on Roquebrune and the Upper Corniche road. With perseverance, with faith--he understood it in a flash--he might have found, here, at Roquebrune, a satisfaction for those ambitions which had so tortured him. There was a field here for the historian, had he chosen to seize on it. Fame might have come to him, though he never visited the great cities and the crowded streets. So he thought, and then he realised what he had become. It was true he had suffered great unhappiness. Yet so had she--Pamela Mardale; and she had not fallen from her pedestal. Here shame seized upon him. He lowered his eyes from her face. "Help!" he stammered. "You ask me to help you? Look at me! I can give you no help!" He suddenly broke off. He sat down at the table, buried his face in his hands, and burst into tears. Pamela crossed to him and laid her hand very gently upon his shoulder. She spoke very gently, too. "Oh yes, you can," she said. He drew away from her, but she would not be repulsed. "You should never have come to me at all," he sobbed. "Oh, how I hate that you should see me like this! Why did you come? I did not mean you to see me. You must have known that! You must have known, too, why. It was not kind of you, mademoiselle. No, it was not kind!" "Yet I am glad that I came," said Pamela. "I came, thinking of myself, it is true--my need is so very great; but now I see your need is as great as mine. I ask you to rise up and help me." "No, leave me alone!" he cried. And she answered, gently, "I will not." M. Giraud grew quiet. He pressed his handkerchief to his eyes, and stood up. "Forgive me!" he said. "I have behaved like a child; but you would forgive me if you knew how I have waited and waited for you to come back. But you never did. Each summer I said, 'She will return in the winter!' And the winter came, and I said, 'She will come in the spring.' But neither in winter nor in the spring did you return to Roquebrune. I have needed you so badly all these years." "I am sorry," replied Pamela; "I am very sorry."