On the last step she sat down, unable to think, unable to reason, her head in a whirl. Julien had jumped out of bed, and was hastily dressing himself. She heard him moving about, and she started up to escape from him. He came downstairs, crying: "Jeanne, do listen to me!" No, she would not listen; he should not degrade her by his touch. She dashed into the dining-room as if a murderer were pursuing her, looked round for a hiding-place or some dark corner where she might conceal herself, and then crouched down under the table. The door opened, and Julien came in with a light in his hand, still calling, "Jeanne! Jeanne!" She started off again like a hunted hare, tore into the kitchen, round which she ran twice like some wild animal at bay, then, as he was getting nearer and nearer to her, she suddenly flung open the garden door, and rushed out into the night. Her bare legs sank into the snow up to her knees, and this icy contact gave her new strength. Although she had nothing on but her chemise she did not feel the bitter cold; her mental anguish was too great for the consciousness of any mere bodily pain to reach her brain, and she ran on and on, looking as white as the snow-covered earth. She did not stop once to take breath, but rushed on across wood and plain without knowing or thinking of what she was doing. Suddenly she found herself at the edge of the cliff. She instinctively stopped short, and then crouched down in the snow and lay there with her mind as powerless to think as her body to move. All at once she began to tremble, as does a sail when caught by the wind. Her arms, her hands, her feet, shook and twitched convulsively, and consciousness returned to her. Things that had happened a long time before came back to her memory; the sail in Lastique's boat with _him_, their conversation, the dawn of their love; the christening of the boat; then her thoughts went still farther back till they reached the night of her arrival from the convent--the night she had spent in happy dreams. And now, now! Her life was ruined; she had had all her pleasure; there were no joys, no happiness, in store for her; and she could see the terrible future with all its tortures, its deceptions, and despair. Surely it would be better to die now, at once. She heard a voice in the distance crying: "This way! this way! Here are her footmarks!" It was Julien looking for her. Oh! she could not, she would not, see him again! Never again! From the abyss before her came the faint sound of the waves as they broke on the rocks. She stood up to throw herself over the cliff, and in a despairing farewell to life, she moaned out that last cry of the dying--the word that the soldier gasps out as he lies wounded to death on the battlefield--"Mother!"