"The following day I staid at home and saw no one. Not because I was afraid of meeting her again; for it never entered my thoughts that she would take a step across her threshold, lest she should encounter my gaze. In this respect, however, I found myself deceived. She actually made her appearance on the beach, about noon, as beautiful and unembarrassed as ever; they had asked her about me, and she had replied that she had seen nothing of me since we landed the night before. Perhaps I had caught a cold on the excursion!
"But on the third day, when, after pondering on this profound saying, I issued forth again, anxious to see whether she would maintain her calmness in my presence too, I heard that she had gone away by the first steamer that morning--no one knew whither.
"This was my last day on the island. About noon I received the sad message that called me home. With the evening boat I left the scene of this vile farce, the bitter memory of which did not fade from my thoughts for long years afterward.
"It is true the days of mourning that awaited me at home, and then soon afterward the only true passion of my life, helped me to consign what had happened to the dim realm of the past--until it rose up before me this evening in all the horror of the present, and I was made to see that the penance I supposed I had satisfied by my separation from Irene was now demanded of me for the first time; and that the happiness of my whole life was to be the price of a guilt which I thought I had long since outlived.
"For as to this open confession, which would be sufficient, if produced before any court, to give you back the freedom you so long for--I know you too well not to feel sure that you will never make use of it. Therefore, you too will continue in chains, and I--how I should despise myself if, with this hellish laughter of Nemesis ringing in my ears, I should appear again before the dear girl I had so recently recovered, and should offer myself as a fitting husband, while you and Julie were obliged, by my guilt, to remain separated, at least before the world! The fact that I have to suffer more than I sinned does not in the least change the question.
"It has always been the custom of Divine justice to make use of different scales and different weights and measures, in exacting its dues. The sin that one man is scarcely made to expiate by a disagreeable hour costs another his own happiness and the happiness of all those dear to him!