He had again become the Jacques Molan of his best days, the man of such assurance, of such imperturbable personal affirmation, from which a curious authority emanated. Henceforward I was refractory on my own account. Was it the same with Camille? Would he not succeed in recovering his influence over the poor mistress he had tormented and vilified? Then what worse degradation would she have to suffer? That question which I asked myself when Jacques had at last gone so overwhelmed me with bitterness that my desire to go away, to see neither him nor her and to know no more about them, became irresistible. I decided to start for Marseilles that same evening. There I would decide upon my destination. I spent the rest of the day in making the necessary arrangements and visiting a few relatives. From time to time I looked at my watch, and at the thought that the time of departure was approaching a hand seemed to clutch my heart. I felt beforehand the chill of the solitude which I was about to enter in leaving the city in which my only love lived and breathed. How great was my discomfiture when at six o’clock, just as I was sitting down to dinner, I heard a carriage stop. The bell rang and then I heard a voice, that of the person I most desired and at the same time most feared to see, the voice of Camille Favier! “Are you going away?” she asked me when I went to her in the studio, where I had told the servant to take her. “I saw your trunks in the anteroom.” “Yes,” I said, “I am going for a tour in Italy.” She had not raised her veil, as if she did not wish me to see her face. This sign of the shame which she felt was very pleasant to me. It was a proof, after so many others, of her natural delicacy, which made her lapse into prostitution all the more heart-breaking to me, and which made her more sadly, though madly, dear to me. “When?” she again asked me. “In an hour and twenty-five minutes if the train is not late,” I said in a joking tone looking at the clock, the sound of whose ticking filled the empty room. For a time we remained silently listening to this noise of time, the unalterable step of life which had led us to that moment which would lead us on to other moments, moments we foresaw likely to be dishonourable for her and melancholy for me. Although we had only exchanged those insignificant words, she saw that I knew everything. She sat down, leant her forehead on her hands, and went on— “So much the worse. I wanted you to take a message for me to Jacques.” “What?” I said tremblingly; I anticipated the horrible confidence. But I added: “If I can be of service to you by postponing my departure——”