She had taken off her hat and was leaning her brown head on her husband's shoulder, while he held her close, his arm round her waist. Their foreheads and eyes and lips caressed each other. They were talking below their breath. No other sound but the rustle of the wind disturbed the deep silence. I was indiscreet enough to play the eavesdropper. She was the one who spoke the most, in little, plaintive, tender phrases, like the twittering of birds. I could only follow the general trend of her remarks, but it was enough for me to see that she was not bemoaning herself lest she should rob him of his courage. She only dwelt in retrospect on the happy weeks they had spent together. Many injunctions followed. They would be sure to write to each other every day, and think of each other all the while. I found it easier to catch his grave, reassuring replies. The tone of his voice baffled me. Here was Frémont, the retiring little man, with shy manners, who liked to keep in the background and always asked advice, appearing in the rôle of comforter! His protecting fondness enfolded his beloved. I continued to lean out above them, my elbows on the stone window-sill, my hands joined. My malevolence gradually subsided. That this was merely the repetition of a scene which had been enacted all through the ages, no longer seemed to me a sufficient reason to smile at it. On the contrary, I was stirred by the thought of the eternal chain of loves and partings. Night had fallen. The trees in the orchard seemed so many phantoms. Not a light to be seen. Some birds flew silently across the night air. I could hardly distinguish the two lovers now, but it seemed to me that their lips had sought and found each other. There was silence for a short space. Then a sentence was breathed softly. A voice trembled into tears. I gathered from certain allusions that she was afraid, though she did not say so, that he might never see their little child. Sitting there motionless, I dedicated my pitying sympathy to them and thought how few men there were among all the thousands I had seen marching past this afternoon, who were not leaving some woman at home, wife or lover, and some child of their flesh.... Poor souls! How terrible their grief must be! I ought to have congratulated myself on the fact that I was leaving nothing behind me. Why did I now so poignantly regret my solitude; did I envy the farewells uttered amid tears and the sealing of vows? There was a noise behind me: Guillaumin. I left the window, an instinctive delicacy of feeling prevented me from drawing his attention to the presence of the couple in the garden.