“But he doesn’t know, he doesn’t dream that I don’t love him, poor boy!” Then the man’s voice, pleading, but masterful. “But, Anne, doesn’t my unhappiness mean as much to you as his?”

That answer of Anne’s! Those flaying words that laid bare Alexis’ soul! That confession of love, which had undermined his whole structure of being!

And the entire horror had passed within the space of a moment. The air still vibrated with Anne’s words, was heavy with their import. Stunned, Alexis had crawled out of hearing and leaned against the base of the terrace. Dismembered, leaden, his limbs rocked beneath him sickeningly. Presently, when the strength flowed back into them again, he would creep away to the gates where his car was waiting. Meanwhile, he must be very silent. A single, uneven breath, a smothered sob might betray him. And they must not guess his presence until he was beyond reach or recall. To steal away was the least he could do. He would steal away out of Anne’s life, like a thief who has stolen another man’s treasure, and then come back surreptitiously, to return it. He, Alexis, was a thief. He had tried to take what did not belong to him. He was an unsuccessful thief, moreover, for Anne’s love had never been his. From the bottomless abyss, he knew it now if never before. The woman who had lain in his arms, whose body he had called his own, had never belonged to him at all. She had remained remote as a condescending goddess. Pitiful, without doubt, but fundamentally untouched. “And yet it is her pity that pains me most.”

Anne, his Anne, he had made her suffer! She was suffering at this moment, only a few feet away. God, how he hated himself! He must get away immediately, before the sight of her weakened him, the beloved voice shattered his resolution to tatters. Violin clasped mechanically to his breast, he crept along the wall and cut across the grass to the gates. They were still ajar and he slipped through to his car unnoticed.

Haggard, unkempt, he entered his hotel and regardless of curious glances, strode to the bureau and secured his berth on the midnight express for Paris.

Two hours later he was on his way.

But he had left behind him a letter for Anne. A taciturn, incoherent letter that strove to conceal the pain that he knew would wound her so cruelly. She must not be sad for him. She must not blame herself at all. It was not her fault that he had overheard her confession. Above all, she must not be afraid that he would do anything desperate like killing himself. Those old, unbalanced days were gone forever. He must live for his child now and his music. He prayed her not to write or to follow him, as out of her immense pity and charity he was afraid she might be tempted to do. But to give him this chance to prove himself a man to them both. He had played with her magnanimity for the last time. He hoped that she would forgive him all the suffering he had so stupidly caused her. And finally, he begged her to think of him sometimes and to keep his gifts for the sake of the great love he would always bear her.

An incoherent letter, every word of which revealed to Anne his bleeding hurt. With anguished eyes, she visualized, relived his agony. Saw him as he crouched beneath the terrace and overheard her confess her love to Vittorio. Followed on his mad ride back to the city. Stood behind him while he labored over the scrawl which was to conceal from her his pain, his utter desolation. Accompanied and sat beside him in the wagon-lit as he steamed put of Florence, out of her life. That same wagon-lit of which he had spoken so joyously only yesterday. That wagon-lit he had hoped to share with her as his companion, but in which he had been destined to ride alone. Behind scalding tears, she saw him throw himself onto his berth, watched him as he lay wide-eyed and motionless into the dawn. Passed with him into the future, as exalted, fawned-upon, his child and his violin by his side, he disappeared over the horizon and out of her sight, a pathetic, solitary figure.

EPILOGUE
PURPLE AND GOLD

Urged by a placid breeze, the small boat sped forward with the graceful glide of a swan, its henna-sail reflected in the rippleless waters like tarnish on green bronze. Almost grazing the lush banks it passed the large hotels on the mainland and skirted the island, where the gardens of the villas sprawl luxuriantly down to the Nile.