signalled. It weighed heavily upon her. Optimist in her projects, and
placing by force, like her father, faith on the side of her will, that
delay which she had not foreseen seemed to her to be treason. The gray
light, which the three-quarters of an hour filtered through the window-
panes of the station, fell on her like the rays of an immense hour-glass
which measured for her the minutes of happiness lost. She was lamenting
her fate, when, in the red light of the sun, she saw the locomotive of
the express stop, monstrous and docile, on the quay, and, in the crowd of
travellers coming out of the carriages, Jacques approached her. He was
looking at her with that sort of sombre and violent joy which she had
often observed in him. He said:

"At last, here you are. I feared to die before seeing you again. You do
not know, I did not know myself, what torture it is to live a week away
from you. I have returned to the little pavilion of the Via Alfieri. In
the room you know, in front of the old pastel, I have wept for love and
rage."

She looked at him tenderly.

"And I, do you not think that I called you, that I wanted you, that when
alone I extended my arms toward you? I had hidden your letters in the
chiffonier where my jewels are. I read them at night: it was delicious,
but it was imprudent. Your letters were yourself--too much and not
enough."

They traversed the court where fiacres rolled away loaded with boxes.
She asked whether they were to take a carriage.

He made no answer. He seemed not to hear. She said: