That look of gratified contentment with which she had greeted him as he was leaving her, clung to his memory and tormented him.

Of that contentment he must now rob her, and he was bound to do so with as little delay as was possible.
Early in the morning before he started on his journey he did make an attempt, a vain attempt, to write, not to Florence but to Julia.

The letter would not get itself written.

He had not the hardihood to inform her that he had amused himself with her sorrows, and that he had injured her by the exhibition of his love.

And then that horrid Franco-Pole, whose prying eyes Julia had dared to disregard, because she had been proud of his love! If she had not been there, the case might have been easier.