But when she had cried out and turned pale in his arms, had she not forgotten that she was acting a lie? If that were so, she must be very sure of finding elsewhere such ardent caresses as his, from another. Otherwise she would not have fled, for he scouted the idea that she was afraid. Such a one as she could have no fear! And if, as he thought the night before, he had really taken her fancy, would she not have remained, guilty or not, to enjoy his caresses anew, even though she were to die of them? But she would not have died of them! She, sorceress as she was, must have known that he would have forgiven everything. Therefore she had _wanted_ to go. She cared nothing for him. If, on the other hand, it had pleased her to keep him with her, to continue their liaison, she would have found a way to do it, in spite of everything. She had only to desire to do it. She did not _desire_!--Even so, he desired her! He rode away at headlong speed. He must find her again. Then they would see! And he circled round the cabin in the swamp like a hawk, examining all the clumps of thorn-broom, all the tamarisks and reeds. Oh! he would find her! He had been riding for several hours, and he began to feel that his quest was useless. If she were outside the limits of the last greater circle that he had described in his search for her, it was all over! he was too late. At last, convinced of his discomfiture, he leaped from his horse and seated himself on the sloping bank of a ditch. It was near midday. He was neither hungry nor thirsty, but the sun told him that it was midday. The gnats were humming about his ears, devouring him, riddling the hide of his horse, who hung his head and sniffed at a tuft of salt grass without eating it, pulling a little upon the rein which Renaud, still seated, held loosely in his hand. Renaud was looking straight before him, and now that he was assured of his misfortune, now that he had neither betrothed nor mistress, neither present nor future, he felt that he was becoming cold and hard, and was astonished to find it so. It seemed to him as if his misfortune had happened to a piece of wood or stone. The wood and the stone were himself. How could he have had such dread of the certainty that had come to him at last? While he had that dread, he still hoped and suffered. Now that all was said, he found that he was insensible to it all--dead, in a measure. And that gratified him. He who had wept so bitterly the night that he tried to put aside his nascent passion, now, in this final catastrophe, which should have called forth all the tears in his body, felt as if the springs had run dry. Instead of being more deeply moved than ever, he found that he was strangely composed, as if armed against fate.--He received the blow like a soldier, like a drover. His tranquillity became more pronounced and more extraordinary as the excessive severity of the disaster became more certain.