He made one more effort to bring up her image in his thoughts, in all its most enchanting beauty, but he failed in the effort.

Madeleine seemed to overshadow everything.

Then his thoughts reverted to Martens, and his agony returned.

He seemed no longer to have any aim in life, which had been so utterly wasted, useless and desolate, and he began to regard himself with loathing, friendless as he was, and thus entangled in an intrigue with one for whom he had no affection, and despised by her whose love he really longed for.
All this time the mist was stealing in light wreaths over the shore; it came gliding beyond the line of the waves, and on over the sand.

It paused for an instant at the man who was thus lying in despair, then stole on further, and finally settled behind the sand-hills.