Barely ten seconds passed, but they were seconds of inconceivable terror. The two colossal stones seemed to bar the view. The locomotive came gliding along with its pale brass and glittering steel, arriving at its smooth, fulminating pace in the golden beams of the beautiful morning. The inevitable was there, nothing in the world could now prevent the smash. And the interval seemed interminable. Misard, who had bounded back to his box, yelled with his arms in the air, shaking his fists in the senseless determination to warn the driver and stop the train. Cabuche, who had quitted the house at the sound of the wheels and the neighing of the horses, rushed forward, also yelling, to make the animals go on. But Flore, who had flung herself on one side, restrained him, which saved his life. He fancied that she had not been strong enough to master the horses, that it was they who had dragged her along. And he taxed himself with carelessness, sobbing in a splutter of despairing terror; while she, motionless, standing at her full height, her eyes like live coal and wide open, looked on. At the same moment, as the front of the engine was about to touch the blocks of stone, when there remained perhaps only three feet to run, during this inappreciable time, she distinctly saw Jacques, with his hand on the reversing-wheel. He had turned towards her, and their eyes met in a gaze that she found inordinately long. On that particular morning Jacques had smiled at Séverine, when she came down on to the platform at Havre for the express. What was the use of spoiling his life with nightmares? Why not take advantage of the happy days when they came? All would perhaps come right in the end. And, resolved to enjoy himself on this day, at all events, he was making plans in his head, dreaming of taking her to lunch at a restaurant. And so, as she cast him a sorrowful glance, because there was not a first-class carriage at the head of the train, and she was forced to find a seat a long way off him at the end, he wished to console her by smiling merrily. They would arrive together, and make up for being separated. Indeed, after leaning over the rail to see her enter a compartment right at the extremity of the train, he had pushed his good humour so far as to joke with the headguard, Henri Dauvergne, whom he knew to be in love with her. The preceding week he fancied he had noticed that the guard was becoming bold, and that she encouraged him, by way of diversion, requiring relief from the atrocious existence she had formed for herself. And Jacques inquired of Henri who it was he had been sending kisses to in the air on the previous evening, when hiding behind one of the elms in the entrance yard. This elicited a loud laugh from Pecqueux, engaged in making up the fire of La Lison, which was smoking, and all ready to set out.