The thought of going back to Caracas, that little Paris in America, with its Old World vices, its idle political passions, its empty round of gaieties, was unendurable.

I was changed, and this change--so great, so complete--was proof that the old artificial life had not been and could not be the real one, in harmony with my deeper and truer nature.

I deceived myself, you will say, as I have often myself said.

I had and I had not.

It is too long a question to discuss here; but just then I felt that I had quitted the hot, tainted atmosphere of the ballroom, that the morning air of heaven refreshed and elevated me and was sweet to breathe.