She simply said: 'I am sorry.'" Michel Revailloud was silent for a little while, and when he spoke again, he spoke very wistfully.

One might almost have said that there was a note of envy in his voice.
"Well, that is still something, monsieur.

You are very lonely to-night, is it not so?
You came back here after many years, eager with hopes and plans and not thinking at all of disappointments.

And the disappointments have come, and the hopes are all fallen.

Is not that so, too?
Well, it is something, monsieur--I, who am lonely too, and an old man besides, so that I cannot mend my loneliness, I tell you--it is something that there is a young girl down there with a sweet and gentle face who is sorry for you, who perhaps is looking up from among those lights to where we stand in the darkness at this moment." But it seemed that Chayne did not hear, or, if he heard, that he paid no heed.