“And I from you, yes, but from him? Oh, he’s well avenged. If I have destroyed his home he has crushed my honour.” “Have I been thinking of him, do you suppose?” But he continued gravely and with sad insistence: “We were living so heedlessly. It’s all finished now.” There was such despair in his voice that she flung herself impulsively into his arms, and cried, “Hush!” Her whole scheme of life had crumbled under them here on this little terrace; she must get him away from it. “Maurice, come to our woods with me,” she pleaded. “Come and sit in the shade behind our chapel. We shall be alone there, and less unhappy.” He made up his mind abruptly that he would listen to her. “Yes, let’s get away from here,” he said. The rays of the sun coming through the pines marked bands of clear light on the leaf-strewn ground. On the shadowy path they lay like golden puddles that must be stepped across. Edith led him round the chapel, and searched out a mossy corner a little to one side, making her lover be seated there. She took his face in her hands and covered it with kisses, and he seemed to yield to her caresses a moment, then suddenly thrust her off. “No, leave me, Edith. Please don’t. When your lips press mine I’ve no more force of will. I am just nothing any more, only a beating heart.” “I love you,” she moaned. “That’s just it. I love you.” He stood up, and half wildly pointed out the lake to her, where it lay glowing through the trees. Already Edith was trembling, and divined the temptation that was upon him. “But I love you more than ever before,” she coaxed. “You may command me and I’ll obey. I’ll listen.” “Will you come with me?” “Where will you take me to, Maurice?” “Down there,” he said, pointing to the lake. “Hush!” she cried, and recoiled instinctively. But as on the Calvary of Lemenc the year before, when she had urged him to come away, he in his turn felt a kind of ecstasy in conquering her will. “Yes, come. Our year of love is dead already. Come, Edith. Already our love is dead. No one will look for us. The water isn’t cold. We’ll let ourselves slip over the edge of a boat. I have no more honour left. Will you come, Edith?” She took him in both her arms and cried out in a frightened voice: “No, no, no! Because I love you. When you love you don’t want to die. You lie, you steal, you kill, but you don’t want to die. Lovers who kill themselves don’t love their love.” He broke loose from her grasp roughly, heedless whether he wounded her or not. “Let me go,” he cried. “Don’t touch me again. Don’t hold me back.” He fled away from her, and she, almost as agile, started in pursuit of him. Some children playing nearby stopped their games to watch the race.