oice which
said to another, "I love you," but which caused him the same thrill as
if she had murmured the words for him. They were letters received by his
rival which the wind carried out, an impalpable dust, over the sea; and
he felt--such folly is the human heart capable of--the bitter regret of
a man who has destroyed a little of his past.

The shadows crept over him at the same time that they crept over the
sea.

"What matters it how much we suffer, or how much suffering we cause," he
murmured, "when, of all our loves, our hearts, ourselves, there remains,
after a short lapse of time--what? That!" And he watched the last atom
of burned paper float away in the deepening twilight.

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE STRICKEN SOUL

His loneliness now weighed heavily upon Andras. His nerves were shaken
by the memories which the czardas of the Tzigani musicians had evoked;
and it seemed to him that the place was deserted now that they had
departed, and Varhely had gone with them. In the eternal symphony of
the sea, the lapping of the waves upon the shingle at the foot of the
terrace, one note was now lacking, the resonant note of the czimbalom
yonder in the gardens of Frascati. The vibration of the czimbalom
was like a call summoning up the image of Marsa, and this image took
invincible possession of the Prince, who, with a sort of sorrowful anger
which he regarded as hatred, tried in vain to drive it away.

What was the use of remaining at Sainte-Adresse, when the memories
he sought to flee came to find him there, and since Marsa's presence
haunted it as if she had lived there by his side?

He quitted Havre, and returned to Paris; but the very evening of his
return, in the bustle and movement of the Champs-Elysees, the long
avenue dotted with lights, the flaming gas-jets of the cafe concerts,
the bursts of music, he found again, as if the Tzigana were continually
pursuing him, the same phantom; despite the noise of people and
carriages upon the asphalt, the echoes of the "Song of Plevna," played
quite near him by some Hungarian orchestra, reached him as upon the
seashore at Havre; and he hastened back to his hotel, to shut himself
up, to hear nothing, see nothing, and escape from the fantastic,
haunting pursuit of this inevitable vision.

He could not sleep; fever burned in his blood. He rose, and tried to
read; but before the printed page he saw continually Marsa Laszlo, like
the spectre of his happiness.

"How coward