She must have been a few steps behind him in the street. They had not wished to enter the room together, in which they both sought refuge to escape pursuit. She closed the door, and leaned her whole weight against it, to close it still tighter. Slowly she turned her head to him, paralysed for a moment, it seemed to me, with fear that it was not he. They stared into each other's faces. A cry burst from them, passionate, restrained, almost mute, echoing from one to the other. It seemed to open up their wound. "You!" "You!" She almost fainted. She dropped on his breast as though swept by a storm. She had just strength enough to fall into his arms. I saw the man's two large pale hands, opened but slightly crooked, resting on the woman's back. A sort of desperate palpitation seized them, as if an immense angel were in the Room, struggling and making vain efforts to escape. And it seemed to me that the Room was too small for this couple, although it was full of the evening. "They didn't see us!" It was the same phrase which had come the other day from the two children. He said, "Come!" leading her over to the sofa, near the window, and they seated themselves on the red velvet. I saw their arms joined together as though by a cord. They remained there, engrossed, gathering about them all the shadow of the world, reviving, beginning to live again in their element of night and solitude. What an entry, what an entry! What an irruption of anathema! I had thought, when this form of sin presented itself before me, when the woman appeared at the door, plainly driven toward him, that I should witness bliss in its plenitude, a savage and animal joy, as momentous as nature. On the contrary, I found that this meeting was like a heart-rending farewell. "Then we shall always be afraid?" She seemed just a little more tranquil, and said this with an anxious glance at him, as if really expecting a reply. She shuddered, huddled in the shadows, feverishly stroking and pressing the man's hand, sitting upright, stiffly. I saw her throat rising and falling like the sea. They stayed there, touching one another; but a lingering terror mingled with their caresses. "Always afraid--always afraid, always. Far from the street, far from the sun, far from everything. I who had so much wanted full daylight and sunlight!" she said, looking at the sky. They were afraid. Fear moulded them, burrowed into their hearts. Their eyes, their hearts were afraid. Above all, their love was afraid. A mournful smile glided across the man's face. He looked at his friend and murmured: "You are thinking of /him."/ She was sitting with her cheeks in her hands and her elbows on her knees and her face thrust forward. She did not reply.