His heart seemed bursting with a new and terrible pain, and the truth at last seemed to rise and choke him.

He loved her.
He loved this woman, the wife of another man.

He loved her as he had never dreamed that he could love a woman, and with the scarf still smothering his lips and face he stood for many minutes, silent and motionless, gathering himself slowly from out of the appalling depths into which he had allowed himself to plunge.
Then he folded the scarf, and instead of returning it to the box, put it in one of the pockets of his coat.
"Pierrot won't care," he excused himself.

"And it's the only thing, little girl--the only thing--I'll ever have--of you.".