“I love you so I could die for you,” he murmured. “Is that all?” she said. “I love you more than that.” “It’s not possible.” “Oh, yes. I love you so I could commit crime for you.” And without transition she added negligently: “This evening I shall take away my dot with me.” He recalled his father’s doubts on this point. “Your dot?” “Yes. It’s provided for in my marriage settlement. Did I not show it to you?” “You haven’t the right to take it. The court only allowed it to you.” “Shall I surrender what’s my own to my husband? And what should we live on if I did?” “Edith, I shall have some money to-night. Then I can find some work to do in Paris. The father of one of my friends is manager of a large company there, and he’s promised to save a place for me in their lawyer’s offices. These last days I have recalled his promise to do so, at all events.” She did not discourage this bland optimism. “Yes, you will have to work. We’ll go to Paris later. But to-night it’s Italy.” “Why?” “Isn’t it the regular pilgrimage for honeymoons?” She bent her head modestly, supple and pliant, and appeared all at once a young girl just betrothed--woman of thirty though she was, with her face that could change so easily from disenchantment to childish grace, as eager to taste of life as children are of those green fruits the very sight of which sets the teeth on edge. The shadows were already coming up over the plain. Before them the map of the landscape grew clearer as its golden tones grew purple. She suffered from these too beautiful October evenings as from desire. “To-morrow,” she said, “to-morrow.” He took a step forward, and turning his back deliberately on the scene, he looked at her alone, as she stood leaning there against a column beneath the peristyle of the chapel. Was she not henceforth to be all his country to him? They took a sort of revenge against the town by going openly down the hill of Lemenc together, as far as the Reclus bridge, taking the risk of meeting people whom they knew. “It’s almost five,” she said as she was leaving him. “Only seven hours more.” Hope revivified the flame in her eyes. Yet Maurice could only see in these seven hours, distastefully, the cruel time that he must pass in deception of his family. She guessed this, and sympathised with her lover’s lot, meaning to destroy in advance the influence that she feared. “Poor child, shall you know how to fib for a whole evening?” He started at finding himself discovered, and repeated to her, not without bitterness, her own lately uttered words. “There’s nothing wrong any more when you love.” “It’s horrible,” she replied, “you see. You can understand my shame and weariness. As for me, I lie because I love you. Courage, until to-night.”