And as no answer came she said:
"Patrick, I have come back."
Again there was that gloomy, cruel silence. And suddenly we saw her fall down crying, sobbing, shaking. Then her father approached her and lifted her up. He did it with infinite gentleness, but he said no word.
My dear reader, you are perhaps a sentimental person and you will, may be, condemn your old friend Patrick for not having made the movement which her father made. But you see....
A few days before I had read William J. Locke's novel The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne, one of the most brilliant and delightful this wonderful writer has achieved. There was a certain analogy in Mitzi's return and in that of Carlotta. Like her she came back empty handed, having also probably pawned everything. It was heart-breaking, and like Marcus I felt faint. Perhaps, if I had spoken one single word at that moment everything would have happened otherwise. However, my morals are not the morals of Marcus Ordeyne—and that one word, I spoke it not.
Slowly her father led her into her room. I used the moment to slip out of the house. I went to my lodgings, nearly mad, and packed my things. The same evening saw me on my way to England, never to go back.