This thought wrung from him a faint groan, so that the coxswain asked respectfully: “Are you in pain, mon lieutenant?” “It’s nothing,” he muttered and set his teeth with the desperation of a man under torture.
While talking with Peyrol outside the house, the words “I won’t see her again,” and “body without mind,” rang through his head. By the time he had left Peyrol and walked up the stairs his endurance was absolutely at an end. All he wanted was to be alone. Going along the dark passage he noticed that the door of Catherine’s room was standing ajar. But that did not arrest his attention. He was approaching a state of insensibility. As he put his hand on the door handle of his room he said to himself: “It will soon be over!”
He was so tired out that he was almost unable to hold up his head, and on going in he didn’t see Arlette, who stood against the wall on one side of the window, out of the moonlight and in the darkest corner of the room. He only became aware of somebody’s presence in the room as she flitted past him with the faintest possible rustle, when he staggered back two paces and heard behind him the key being turned in the lock. If the whole house had fallen into ruins, bringing him to the ground, he could not have been more overwhelmed and, in a manner, more utterly bereft of all his senses. The first that came back to him was the sense of touch when Arlette seized his hand. He regained his hearing next. She was whispering to him: “At last! At last! But you are careless. If it had been Scevola instead of me in this room you would have been dead now. I have seen him at work.” He felt a significant pressure on his hand, but he couldn’t see her properly yet, though he was aware of her nearness with every fibre of his body. “It wasn’t yesterday though,” she added in a low tone. Then suddenly: “Come to the window so that I may look at you.”
A great square of moonlight lay on the floor. He obeyed the tug like a little child. She caught hold of his other hand as it hung by his side. He was rigid all over, without joints, and it did not seem to him that he was breathing. With her face a little below his, she stared at him closely, whispering gently: “Eugène, Eugène,” and suddenly the livid immobility of his face frightened her. “You say nothing. You look ill. What is the matter? Are you hurt?” She let go his insensitive hands and began to feel him all over for evidence of some injury. She even snatched off his hat and flung it away in her haste to discover that his head was unharmed; but finding no sign of bodily damage, she calmed down like a sensible, practical person. With her hands clasped round his neck she hung back a little. Her little even teeth gleamed, her black eyes, immensely profound, looked into his, not with a transport of passion or fear, but with a sort of reposeful satisfaction, with a searching and appropriating expression. He came back to life with a low and reckless exclamation, felt horribly insecure at once as if he were standing on a lofty pinnacle above a noise as of breaking waves in his ears, in fear lest her fingers should part and she would fall off and be lost to him forever. He flung his arms round her waist and hugged her close to his breast. In the great silence, in the bright moonlight falling through the window, they stood like that for a long, long time. He looked at her head resting on his shoulder. Her eyes were closed, and the expression of her unsmiling face was that of a delightful dream, something infinitely ethereal, peaceful and, as it were, eternal. Its appeal pierced his heart with a pointed sweetness. “She is exquisite. It’s a miracle,” he thought with a sort of terror. “It’s impossible.”
She made a movement to disengage herself, and instinctively he resisted, pressing her closer to his breast. She yielded for a moment and then tried again. He let her go. She stood at arm’s length, her hands on his shoulders, and her charm struck him suddenly as funny in the seriousness of expression as of a very capable, practical woman.
“All this is very well,” she said in a businesslike undertone. “We will have to think how to get away from here. I don’t mean now, this moment,” she added, feeling his slight start. “Scevola is thirsting for your blood.” She detached one hand to point a finger at the inner wall of the room, and lowered her voice. “He’s there, you know. Don’t trust Peyrol either. I was looking at you two out there. He has changed. I can trust him no longer.” Her murmur vibrated. “He and Catherine behave strangely. I don’t know what came to them. He doesn’t talk to me. When I sit down near him he turns his shoulder to me. …”
She felt Réal sway under her hands, paused in concern and said: “You are tired.” But as he didn’t move, she actually led him to a chair, pushed him into it, and sat on the floor at his feet. She rested her head against his knees and kept possession of one of his hands. A sigh escaped her. “I knew this was going to be,” she said very low. “But I was taken by surprise.”
“Oh, you knew
