Three days passed. Then Pauline at last came to a determination. She would leave the house on the following Monday. Lazare and Louise had already begun to talk of remaining till after the birth of the expected baby, and Pauline thought she could see that her cousin had had enough of Paris, and would settle down altogether at Bonneville, weary and sick of his perpetual failures. The best thing she could do, therefore, was to give the place up to them at once, for she had not been able to conquer herself, and she more than ever lacked the courage to live beside them and witness all the intimacy of man and wife. Besides, this course seemed the best means of escaping from all the perils threatened by the reviving passion from which she and Lazare had just suffered so cruelly. Louise alone expressed some astonishment on learning Pauline's decision, but she was supplied with undeniable reasons for it. Doctor Cazenove told her that his relation at Saint-Lô had made Pauline unusually favourable offers, that the girl could not really refuse them any longer, and that her friends must insist upon her accepting a position which would make her future safe. Chanteau, too, with tears in his eyes, expressed his consent. On the Saturday came a farewell dinner, with the priest and the Doctor. Louise, who suffered greatly, could scarcely drag herself to the table, and this threw additional gloom over the meal, in spite of the efforts of Pauline, who had cheerful smiles for everyone, though in reality she grieved bitterly at the thought of leaving that house, which she had animated and brightened for so many years with her ringing laughter. Her heart was aching with pain, and Véronique served the dinner with a tragic air. Chanteau refused to touch a single drop of Burgundy, having become all at once almost superfluously prudent, for he trembled at the thought of being so soon deprived of a nurse whose mere voice seemed able to lull his pains. Lazare, for his part, was feverish, and wrangled with the Doctor about a new scientific discovery. By eleven o'clock the house had once more subsided into silence. Louise and Chanteau were already asleep, while Véronique was tidying up her kitchen. Then, at the top of the house, by the door of his old room, which he still occupied, Lazare detained Pauline for a moment, according to his wont. 'Good-bye!' he murmured. 'No! not good-bye,' she said, forcing herself to smile. '_Au revoir_, since I am not going away till Monday.' They gazed at each other, and as their eyes grew dim they fell into each other's arms, while their lips met passionately in a last kiss. X