He had sunk to such a depth of disillusionment that, as they passed through the little village of Yvetot, he thought of nothing but flight. But he lacked the energy to fly; and that redoubled his anger. The memory of Clarice d’Etigues rose in his mind; and in a kind of revengefulness, he summoned up before it the clear image of the gentle young girl whose selfless abandonment had been so noble. But Josephine Balsamo did not loose her prey. However tarnished she might appear to him, however deformed the idol might have grown, she was there! An intoxicating fragrance emanated from her. He was touching her. With a movement he could take her hand and kiss that perfumed flesh. She was all the passion, all the desire, all the voluptuousness, all the troubling mystery of woman; and once more the memory of Clarice vanished from his mind. “Josine--Josine,” he murmured so low that she did not hear him. Moreover, what was the use of bemoaning his love and his suffering? Would she restore to him the confidence he had lost and regain in his eyes the prestige which was hers no longer? They were drawing near the Seine. On the top of the slope which runs down to the river at Caudebec they turned to the left, among the wooded hills which dominate the valley of Saint Wandrille. They drove along the ruins of the celebrated abbey, followed the course of the water which bathes the foot of its walls, came in sight of the river, and took the road to Rouen. A few minutes later the carriage stopped. They stepped out of it; and Leonard drove on again, leaving them on the outskirts of a little wood from which they looked across the river. A meadow covered with waving reeds ran between it and them. Josephine Balsamo held out her hand: “Good-by, Ralph. A little further on you will find Mailleraie Station.” “But what about you?” he asked. “I? My abode is close at hand.” “I don’t see it.” “Yes, you do: that barge which you can just see between the branches.” “I’ll take you to it.” A narrow embankment ran across the meadow through the middle of the reeds. The Countess took her way along it, followed by Ralph. So they came to a piece of open ground, close by the barge, which was still hidden behind a curtain of willows. No one could see them or hear them. They were alone under the expanse of blue sky. And there there passed some of those minutes of which one keeps the memory for a lifetime and which influence the whole course of one’s destiny. “Good-by,” said Josephine Balsamo once more. He hesitated before this hand stretched out to him in final farewell. “Won’t you shake hands with me?” she said. “Yes ... yes....” he murmured. “But why should we separate?” “Because we no longer have anything to say to one another,” she said sadly. “Nothing indeed; and yet we never have said anything,” said he. He took her warm and supple little hand in his and said: “What those men said?... Their accusations in the garden of that inn?... Was it true?”