He had the impression that slowly a deep calm was stealing over her. She was no longer shaken by those feverish shudders which shook her from head to foot. Her troubled spirit was growing quieter; the nightmares, the anguish, the terror, all the hideous creatures of night and death, were growing fainter. He enjoyed fiercely this manifestation of his influence and power, magnetic to a degree, over creatures whom circumstances had thrust from their ordinary round and to whom he restored balance and for a while gave forgetfulness of the horrible reality. Moreover he was withdrawing himself also from the tragedy. The dead English girl grew faint in his memory, and it was no longer a girl in a blood-stained blouse whom he was clasping, but the girl of Paris, elegant and radiant. It was useless for him to say to himself: “I will punish her. She shall pay the penalty.” How could he fail to be aware of the fresh breath breathed out through lips so near to him? The eyes of the carriage lamps were growing larger. The doctor would reach them in a few minutes. “And then,” said Ralph to himself, “I shall have to leave her and act—all this will be over. Never again shall I be able to spend moments like this with her—moments of such intimacy.” He bent down over her and divined that she was lying with her eyes closed, trusting herself wholly to his protecting care. Plainly she was thinking that in his arms all was well, that the danger was lessening. Quickly he bent lower and kissed her lips. She tried weakly to thrust him away, sighed and said nothing. He had the impression that she accepted the caress, and that, in spite of a slight recoil, she yielded to the sweetness of that kiss. That lasted a few moments. Then a wave of revolt surged through her. She stiffened her arms and thrust him away with a sudden energy, crying: “This is hateful! Shameful! Leave me alone. You’re behaving disgracefully!” He tried to laugh, and furious with her could well have abused her. But he could not find the words; and as she fled from him through the darkness, he murmured under his breath: “What does this mean? But what modesty! And what next? What! You might think I had committed sacrilege.” He turned and sprang up the embankment and searched for her. Where? Thick bushes hid her in her flight. There was no hope of catching her.