Others follow; then nothing more is to be seen in the rain, the wind and the gloom but backs. "It's finished. Let's go." Marie lifts to me her sorrow-laved face. She is sweet; she is affectionate; she is unhappy; but she does not love me. We go away in disorder, along by the trees whose skeletons the winter has blackened. When we arrive in our quarter, twilight has invaded the streets. We hear gusts of talk about the Pocard scheme. Ah, how fiercely people live and seek success! Little Antoinette, cautiously feeling her way by a big wall, hears us pass. She stops and would look if she could. We espy her figure in that twilight of which she is beginning to make a part, though fine and faint as a pistil. "Poor little angel!" says a woman, as she goes by. Marie and her father are the only ones left near me when we pass Rampaille's tavern. Some men who were at the funeral are sitting at tables there, black-clad. We reach my home; Marie offers me her hand, and we hesitate. "Come in." She enters. We look at the dead room; the floor is wet, and the wind blows through as if we were out of doors. Both of us are crying, and she says, "I will come to-morrow and tidy up. Till then----" We take each other's hand in confused hesitation. * * * * * * A little later there is a scraping at the door, then a timid knock, and a long figure appears. It is Véron who presents himself with an awkward air. His tall and badly jointed body swings like a hanging signboard. He is an original and sentimental soul, but no one has ever troubled to find out what he is. He begins, "My young friend--hum, hum--" (he repeats this formless sound every two or three words, like a sort of clock with a sonorous tick)--"One may be wanting money, you know, for something--hum, hum; you need money, perhaps--hum, hum; all this expense--and I'd said to myself 'I'll take him some----'" He scrutinizes me as he repeats, "Hum, hum." I shake his hand with tears in my eyes. I do not need money, but I know I shall never forget that action; so good, so supernatural. And when he has swung himself out, abashed by my refusal, embarrassed by the unusual size of his legs and his heart, I sit down in a corner, seized with shivering. Then I obliterate myself in another corner, equally forlorn. It seems as if Marie has gone away with all I have. I am in mourning and I am all alone, because of her. CHAPTER IV MARIE The seat leans against the gray wall, at the spot where a rose tree hangs over it, and the lane begins to slope to the river. I asked Marie to come, and I am waiting for her in the evening. When I asked her--in sudden decision after so many days of hesitation--to meet me here this evening, she was silent, astonished. But she did not refuse; she did not answer. Some people came and she went away. I am waiting for her, after that prayer.