I would have liked to pray. I had need of clasping my hands, of imploring a kind and compassionate Divinity. I felt myself weak and deserted; in my childish fear I wanted to give myself to a good God, who would take pity on me. While Jacques was tearing Laurence from me and while the guilty couple, below me, were indulging in loving kisses, I had an overwhelming desire to make my profession of faith and love, to protest on my knees, to love elsewhere, in the light, before all the world. But my lips were ignorant of prayer, I despairingly stretched out my arms, in space, towards the mute sky. I encountered Marie's hand, and pressed it gently. Her dilated eyes were still questioning me. "Oh! let us pray, my child," said I to her, "let us pray together." She seemed not to understand me. "What is the matter with you?" murmured she, in a faint and caressing voice. And her feeble hand sought to wipe away my tears. Then, I looked at her and my torn heart melted with pity. She was dying. She was already beyond life, whiter, grander; her glassy eyes were filled with a soft and serene ecstasy; her tranquil countenance was as if wrapped in slumber, her thin lips no longer emitted the rattle. I realized that she was about to die in my arms, at this solemn hour when my tenderness was also dying, and her agony, mingled with that of my love, filled my soul with compassion so deep that I again stretched out my hands into space with a more biting anxiety, searching for some one. I lifted myself up, and, in a low, broken voice, repeated: "Let us pray, my child, let us pray together." Marie smiled. "Pray, Claude?" said she. "Why do you wish me to pray?" "To console us, Marie, to obtain pardon for us." "I have no pardon to ask for, I have no sorrow to be softened. See, I am smiling, I am happy; my heart reproaches me with nothing." She was silent for a moment, putting aside her locks from her forehead; then she resumed, in a weaker tone: "I know not how to pray, because I have never had to ask for pardon. The woman who brought me up assured me that the wicked alone went to church to obtain absolution for their crimes. I am a child who never did evil; never have I had need of God. Whenever I wept, my tears flowed copiously down my cheeks and the wind dried them. Do you wish me to pray for you, Claude?" added she, after another period of silence. "You shall clasp my hands and make me repeat the words which they teach to the children in the villages. I will ask God not to make you weep any more!" Trembling, touched, I prayed for Marie, I prayed for myself. I found in the depths of my being words of supplication and adoration, and I uttered them one by one without moving my lips. I supplicated Heaven to be merciful, to make death easy, to put this child to sleep in her ecstasy, in her ignorance. And, while I prayed, Marie, without seeing that I was addressing God, clung to my neck with greater force, bending over my face.