Le Breton said nothing. He stayed brooding on the ruins around him, hating himself and the savage chief who had been his teacher.
All his old world had been swept away from him. Lost and alone, he would have to start afresh, according to new lights and new ideals, and without a hand to guide him.
He had nothing, neither wealth nor kingdom. Not his pride even. Unknowingly he had been a renegade, fighting against his own nation.
He was utterly broken. But he did not look it—only unutterably dreary.
As he pondered on his past life, he realised to the fullest what he must look like to Pansy. No wonder she had fought against her love for him! Any decent woman would.
He did not hear Barclay go, leaving him alone with his thoughts and the deepening shadows. He was aware of nothing except his own wild career, and how he had run foul of all white ideals.
The door opened, but he did not hear that either. He was too full of suffering and repentance.
Then another whisper penetrated the whirl in which he moved.
"Raoul," a girl's voice said gently.
He looked at Pansy as a man dying of thirst in a desert would look at a mirage of lakes and fountains—a vision of torturing desire that he knew was not for him.