"But if she wanted to?"

"In that case she ought to be protected from herself. There's no use in
ruining two lives where one will do."

"There's such a thing as losing your life to find it."

"If so, it's something for me to do--alone."

"Isn't it a kind of moral cowardice to say that?"

"I don't think so. To me it seems only looking things squarely in the
face. I'm not the sort of man for whom there's any possibility of
beginning life anew. A man like me can't live things down. When once, by
his own confession, he has lost his honor, there's no rehabilitation
that can make him a man again. Like Cain, he has got to go out from the
presence of the Lord; only, unlike Cain, there's no land of Nod waiting
to receive him. There's no place for him anywhere on earth. A few years
ago, when I was motoring in the Black Forest with the d'Aubignys, we
dropped into a little hole of an inn as nearly out of the world as
anything could be. As we approached the door a man got up from a bench
and shambled away. When he had got to what he considered a safe distance
he turned to look at us. I knew him. It was Jacques de la Tour de
Lorme."

"Really?"

"The poor wretch had hidden himself in that God-forsaken spot, where he
supposed no one would be able to track him down; but we had done it.