"No, not till we see each other again!" he exclaimed, "that is too
indefinite. When will you come again?"

She looked him full in the face.

"Do you wish me to be frank with you?" she inquired. "Well, then, to
tell you the truth, I think I shall come no more. I have no pretext, and
I cannot invent one."

"Then we must say farewell," he remarked.

"No, I will not do that!" she answered.

She pronounced these words in terrified anger. Then she added more
gently, without knowing what she was saying, and without moving from her
chair:

"I am going."

Laurent reflected. He was thinking of Camille.

"I wish him no harm," said he at length, without pronouncing the name:
"but really he is too much in our way. Couldn't you get rid of him, send
him on a journey somewhere, a long way off?"

"Ah! yes, send him on a journey!" resumed the young woman, nodding her
head. "And do you imagine a man like that would consent to travel? There
is only one journey, that from which you never return. But he will bury
us all. People who are at their last breath, never die."