Thérèse and Jean, when the letter had been written and posted, had thought the affair was over,--far from supposing that Anne would not let go,--just as if any human creature listened to reasons or to reasonings, when its whole life was at stake! She had succeeded in eluding her mother and got into a train. She had made her way along the dark Argelouse road by the strip of clear sky between the tree-tops. “She must see him again: if she could see him again, he was hers once more: she _must_ see him.” She had stumbled along, twisting her feet in the cart tracks, she was in such a hurry to reach Argelouse. Thérèse told her that Jean was gone and was now in Paris. Anne shook her head, she did not believe it: she could not let herself believe it, if she was not to collapse with fatigue and despair: “You are lying as you have always lied.” And as Thérèse protested, she added: “Oh, you’ve got the family spirit with a vengeance! You pose as emancipated, but since your marriage you’ve become a woman of the family, pretty quick.... Yes, yes, of course, you did it for the best: you betrayed me to save me, didn’t you? I will spare you your explanations.” As she was opening the door, Thérèse asked her where she was going. “To Vilméja, to his house.” “I tell you he left it two days ago.” “I don’t believe you.” She went out; Thérèse then lit the lantern hanging in the entrance hall and went out after her: “You’re going wrong, my little Anne: you’re on the road to Biourge. Vilméja is over there.” They made their way through the mist. Dogs began to bark. The oaks of Vilméja at last, and the house, not asleep, but dead. Anne prowled round the empty sepulchre, and hammered on the door with both fists. Thérèse, standing motionless, had put the lantern down on the grass. She watched her friend’s slender ghost clinging to each window on the ground floor. Anne was no doubt whispering a name to herself, but not calling it aloud, for she knew that it was quite useless. For a few moments she was hidden behind the building; then she reappeared, went up to the door, and sank down upon the threshold, and hid her face in her knees which she clasped with her arms. Thérèse lifted her up and led her away. Anne kept on saying, as she stumbled along: “I shall go to Paris to-morrow morning: Paris is not so very big: I shall find him in Paris....” But she spoke like an exhausted child who had already given up hope.