A very clear moon had risen, shedding a white light, by which Jacques was able to distinguish the smallest bushes, and even the stones on the roads, in their rapid flight. As he cast a glance to the right, on leaving the tunnel of Malaunay, disturbed at the shadow cast across the line by a great tree, he recognised the out-of-the-way corner, the field full of bushes, whence he had witnessed the murder. The wild, deserted country flew past, with its continuous hills, its raw black patches of copses, its ravaged desolation. Next, at La Croix-de-Maufras, beneath the motionless moon, abruptly appeared the vision of the atrociously melancholy house set down aslant in its abandonment and distress, with its shutters everlastingly closed. And without understanding why, Jacques, this time again, and more vigorously than on previous occasions, felt a tightening at the heart as if he was passing before his doom. But immediately afterwards, his eyes carried another image away. Near the house of the Misards, against the gate at the level crossing, stood Flore. He now saw her at this spot at each of his journeys, awaiting, on the watch for him. She did not move, she simply turned her head so as to be able to get a longer view of him in the flash that bore him away. Her tall silhouette stood out in black, against the white light, her golden locks alone being illumined by the pale gold of the celestial body. And Jacques, having urged on La Lison, to make it scale the ascent at Motteville, allowed the engine breathing time across the plateau of Bolbec. But he finally sent it on again, from Saint-Romain to Harfleur, down the longest incline on the line, a matter of three leagues, which the engines devour at the gallop of mad cattle sniffing the stable. And he was broken down with fatigue at Havre, when, beneath the iron marquee, full of the uproar and smoke at the arrival, Séverine, before going up to her rooms, ran to say to him, in her gay and tender manner: "Thanks. We may see one another to-morrow." CHAPTER VI A month passed, and great tranquillity again pervaded the lodging occupied by the Roubauds, on the first floor of the railway station, over the waiting-rooms. With them, with their neighbours in the corridor, with all this little crowd of public servants subjected to an existence regulated by the clock, life had resumed its monotony. And it seemed as if nothing violent or abnormal had taken place.