When the young man had dried his tears: “You are right,” he said; “we cannot return to Plassans. But the time for cowardice has not yet come. If we come out of the struggle triumphant, I will go for aunt Dide, and we will take her ever so far away with us. If we are beaten——” He stopped. “If we are beaten?” repeated Miette, softly. “Then be it as God wills!” continued Silvère, in a softer voice. “I most likely shall not be there. You will comfort the poor woman. That would be better.” “Ah! as you said just now,” the young girl murmured, “it would be better to die.” At this longing for death they tightened their embrace. Miette relied upon dying with Silvère; he had only spoken of himself, but she felt that he would gladly take her with him into the earth. They would there be able to love each other more freely than under the sun. Aunt Dide would die likewise and join them. It was, so to say, a rapid presentiment, a desire for some strange voluptuousness, to which Heaven, by the mournful accents of the tocsin, was promising early gratification. To die! To die! The bells repeated these words with increasing passion, and the lovers yielded to the calls of the darkness; they fancied they experienced a foretaste of the last sleep, in the drowsiness into which they again sank, whilst their lips met once more. Miette no longer turned away. It was she, now, who pressed her lips to Silvère’s, who sought with mute ardour for the delight whose stinging smart she had not at first been able to endure. The thought of approaching death had excited her; she no longer felt herself blushing, but hung upon her love, while he in faltering voice repeated: “I love you! I love you!”