They separated early, and just as if they had said good-bye until the following day, although they both knew perfectly well that to sleep apart from each other was impossible to them. Thus Hubert was not astonished, although his heart beat as if it would break when, at the very moment that he was about to seek her, he heard the key turn in the door, and Theresa entered, clad in a long, pliant wrapper of white lace, and with an impassioned sweetness in her eyes. "Ah!" she said, closing Hubert's eyelids with her perfumed fingers, "I want so much to rest upon your heart." Towards midnight the young man awoke, and seeking the face of his mistress with his lips, found that her cheeks, which he could not see, were bathed in tears. "You are grieved," he said to her. "No," she replied, "they are tears of gratitude. Ah!" she went on, "how could they fail to take you from me beforehand, my angel, and how unworthy I am of you!" Enigmatic words which Hubert was often to remember later on, and which, even at this moment, and in spite of the kisses, raised suddenly within him that vapour of sadness which is the customary accompaniment of pleasure. Through it he could see, as by a lightning flash, a house that was familiar to him, and, bending down beneath the lamp, among the family portraits, the faces of the two women who had reared him. It was only for a second, and he laid his head upon Theresa's breast, there to forget all thought, while the vague complaining of the sea reached him, softened by the distance--a mysterious and distant murmur like the approach of fate. CHAPTER V A fortnight later Hubert Liauran stepped upon the platform of the Northern Terminus about five o'clock in the evening, on his return from London by the day train. Count Scilly and Madame Castel were waiting for him. But what were his feelings when, among the faces pressing around the doors, he recognised that of Theresa? They had made an appointment by letter to meet on the evening of that day, which was a Tuesday, in her box at the Théâtre Français. Nevertheless, she had not withstood the desire of seeing him again some hours earlier, and in her eyes there shone supreme emotion, formed of happiness at beholding him and sorrow at being separated from him; for they could only exchange a bow, which, fortunately, escaped the grandmother.