"Ah!" said M. de Claviers, "you have not gone! I have come in time!--No. I could not let you go away so. I could not. I wrote you. I prepared a despatch. I sent neither. It was the sight of you that I craved--to hear your voice, to speak to you once more. I resisted up to the last moment. I knew that it would cost me so dear to lose you again! And then, when I saw the hour for the last train for England draw near, after which it would be too late, I held out no longer. I went to your hotel in London, thinking that you might have postponed your departure.--However, here I am and here you are. You have behaved so admirably! That very last act, too--your refusal to keep that money! I shall at least have told you again that I thank you. I shall have told you that I have never ceased to love you." "I am the one who has to thank you," replied Landri, "for understanding the appeal of my letters. It is true: to go so far away without seeing you again was very hard. I would have endured that grief, like the others, without rebelling. But I think that I did not deserve it. I, too, have always loved you so dearly, revered you so--" "You deserved no grief at all," the marquis hastily interrupted. Then, dropping into a chair, and in an attitude of utter dejection, "none at all," he repeated, "and you were justified in thinking me terribly cruel." "Cruel?" cried the young man. "Don't say that. Don't think it." "I do think it," M. de Claviers replied. "I felt that you were wretchedly unhappy when we parted. You stood there, I saw, loving me with all your heart, awaiting a word from me. I did not say it, because I too loved you too well. If I had spoken to you then, I should not have had the strength to go on to the end of what I had to do. That money must be repaid. I must sell the treasures of Grandchamp. I must place an indestructible barrier between you and myself, in the eyes of the world, so that it might suspect nothing. I was obliged to stifle that paternal feeling which I could not succeed in destroying. But it was I who formed your character! If I had not been the heir of the Claviers-Grandchamps, the depositary of the name, the representative of the race, I should have held my peace for love of you when I received that anonymous letter. If I alone had been involved, I would have swallowed the insult. You would never have known what I knew. Because of them, in the interest of their house, I had to act as I did. But I was able to measure your grief by my own. And I had my dead to encourage me, while you--"