"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!
"And now I have said all that I had to say. I shall refer Irene, to whom I have merely sent a short note, to you, in case she should insist upon learning the true reason why I am forced to leave her anew--and this time forever--without looking on her face again. Perhaps if I did I should not have the courage--and then I should be all the more contemptible in your eyes.
"It won't be long now before morning. Then I will saddle my horse, ride back to town, pack my trunks, and take good care that this letter does not come into your hands until there is no longer any danger that your magnanimity or your pity will attempt to restrain a man who can only recover his self-respect in exile.
"Farewell!--I do not dare to call you by the old familiar name. But since, from what I know of you, you will not cease, in spite of all that has happened, to cherish a warm feeling toward me, let me say, in conclusion, that you must not think of me as a despairing man who is ready to throw away his ruined life too cheaply. The sweets of life are, indeed, behind me; but much that is useful still lies open for me to do, so that I may atone to all mankind for the old crime I committed against an individual. Perhaps I may some time find out why it is that fate should have chosen me, from all the rest, to be punished with double measure for my sins. Felix."
CHAPTER XV.
Julie had long ago finished reading the letter, and still she stood motionless at the window, while Jansen, his head sunk on his breast, sat on the sofa in a state between waking and sleeping.
It was not until the sheets slipped from her hand and fell at his feet that he started from his stupor. But he did not pick them up.
"What does he write?" He asked in a hollow voice.
"Just what you thought he would," she answered. "You will hardly find anything new in the letter, or at all events, anything that can alter things. So you had better read it at some calmer hour, after you have had a good sleep. In spite of all, I feel sure the letter will do you good. It would have been impossible to write of an unworthy subject in a more dignified way, and I, at least, have no worse opinion of our friend since I have heard his sad story. I believe everything will yet go well, and we needn't even lose our friend. He speaks, to be sure, of his self-imposed exile, and has also written a farewell letter to Irene, because he is of too chivalrous a nature to allow himself a happiness of which he thinks he has deprived us."
He raised his head and looked at her with a dazed, inquiring look in his eyes.