Annette, rigid and frozen, would not say another word. She did not even try to stop this torrent. Her lips were tightly pressed together, her eyes dull. . . . At last Noémi became silent in the face of this immobility. She took her hands--they were cold and damp. "Answer, answer!" she said. Without looking at her, Annette murmured, "Leave me." (Her voice was so low that Noémi read it on her lips rather than heard it.) "You want me to go away?" she replied. Annette nodded. "I am going, but you have promised?" Annette repeated wearily, "Leave me, leave me. . . . I need to be alone. . . ." Noémi hastily rearranged her hair before the mirror. Then, turning towards the door, she said, "Good-bye, you have promised. . . ." Annette made a final gesture of protest, "No, I have promised nothing." Noémi felt herself again flooded with anger. After all this effort! But her instinct told her that she must not move too quickly or stretch the cord too tight. . . . All the same, the blow had its effect. She left. She had seen the weakness of the enemy. She would trample on her. XLV Annette remained for some time motionless in the spot where Noémi had left her. She was exhausted after this long scene. She would have resisted better if the attack had not surprised her at a moment when she was already shaken by the double wear and tear of passion and incessant work, the uninterrupted fever aroused in her stormy soul by her participation in Philippe's struggles, the repressed remorse, the anguish that was concealed beneath her exhaustion of mind and body. This weakness gave Noémi her strength. She found the field prepared and an ally in her adversary. Noémi herself played little part in Annette's anxieties. She cared little for her as a woman. As a rival she did not care about her at all. She considered her false, perfidious, heartless, and with jealous injustice she now denied what she had at first enjoyed, her charm. Everything about her seemed factitious except her grief. Besides, it mattered very little whether it was Noémi or someone else. . . . "She is a living creature who suffers, and I, I cause this suffering. . . ." And a strange pity preyed upon Annette's heart.