I began rummaging through Madame Édmonde’s belongings, with which I was, of course, intimately familiar, having packed them myself. I knew where she kept her cash, her jewelry, and a promissory note for a rather sizeable sum of money she had written out in my name only the previous evening. I took almost all of it, leaving a little for Lucien to get himself and Édmonde back to Paris. With my hand on the doorknob, my conscience stung me like an angry wasp. I considered leaving a note for Lucien, but what was there to say? I was inflicting a terrible shock on the man, I knew that, but I could not risk being detained. After all, I hadn’t left the island for his sake. I did not wish to return to Paris as Édmonde. Mehevi, or whoever he was now, would be looking out for her. He would not be looking out for Balthazar. I had no choice but to flee. I turned and stole a final glance at that contorted face, upon which the suffering of five lifetimes was etched. Her body had been the vessel that had allowed me to return home at last, but my attachment to her was far more profound. In patience, perseverance, and kindness, Édmonde had been my finest incarnation. Now she was in a sorry state—another blind crossing. I was overcome with shame. What had become of me? I was little better than an ordinary criminal, a mountebank stealing the lives of others—and to what end? I consoled myself with the notion that the soul I had stolen was that of a charlatan. But it was undeniable that I had, by now, become a kind of predator. I could blame Mehevi, but as I myself was to blame for him, it came to the same thing.

I had to remind myself, then, as I have countless times since, that there was a single and necessary purpose to my existence: if I had, as the Law prophesied, set in motion a cataclysm, no matter how slowly it unfolded, it was my duty to try to prevent it. My resolve thus stiffened, I fled the scene of the crime.