He abstained, then, from all action, postponing it indefinitely.

"I will go to her," said he to himself; "but not until I have so torn her from my heart that she will have become indifferent to me.

I will not gratify her with the sight of my grief." So months and years passed on; and finally he began to say and believe that it was too late.

And for now more than twenty years, he had never passed a day without cursing his inexcusable folly.

Never had he been able to forget that above his head a danger more terrible than the sword of Damocles hung, suspended by a thread, which the slightest accident might break.
And now that thread had broken.