He would have separated the congenial spirits of cunning and deceit, but not by striking a blow, and the rebuke to Cesarine would have been so scathing she would never have had the impudence to see him again.

Not by murder did he mean to liberate himself.
On seeing that heaven had taken the parting of the gallant and the wanton into its hand, he had simply forbore to intervene.

On the one hand, he let Gratian's mysterious and stealthy assassins stifle him and the other, Cesarine, run to the railroad station unhailed.

The one deserved death as the other deserved oblivion.
This woman was of the world and would be a clod when no longer living--her essence would remain to inspirit some other evil woman--the same malignity in a beautiful shape which appeared in Lais, Messalina, Lucrezia Borgia, the Medici, Ninon, Lecouvreur, Iza, not links of a chain, but the same gem, a little differently set.
But Rebecca's was an ethereal spirit eternal.

Thinking of her he could believe himself young and comely again and loving forever in another sphere.