"Christophe told me.... You have suffered?"

Olivier nodded: he was too much moved to speak.

"I have suffered too," she said.

She told him of the friend who had been taken from her, her beloved
Marthe and with her heart big with emotion she told him how she had
wept, wept until she thought she was going to die.

"You will help me?" she said, in a beseeching tone. "You will help me
to live, and be good, and to be a little like her? Poor Marthe, you will
love her too?"

"We will love them both, as they both love each other."

"I wish they were here."

"They are here."

They sat there locked in each other's arms: they hardly breathed, and
could feel heart beating to heart. A gentle drizzle was falling,
falling. Jacqueline shivered.

"Let us go in," she said.

Under the trees it was almost dark. Olivier kissed Jacqueline's wet
hair: she turned her face up to him, and, for the first time, he felt
loving lips against his, a girl's lips, warm and parted a little. They
were nigh swooning.