On quitting the office, he got rid of Camille by saying he was tired, and should go to bed at once. Thérèse, after dinner, also played her part. She mentioned a customer who had moved without paying her, and acting the indignant creditor who would listen to nothing, declared that she intended calling on her debtor with the view of asking for payment of the money that was due. The customer now lived at Batignolles. Madame Raquin and Camille considered this a long way to go, and thought it doubtful whether the journey would have a satisfactory result; but they expressed no surprise, and allowed Thérèse to set out on her errand in all tranquillity. The young woman ran to the Port aux Vins, gliding over the slippery pavement, and knocking up against the passers-by, in her hurry to reach her destination. Beads of perspiration covered her face, and her hands were burning. Anyone might have taken her for a drunken woman. She rapidly ascended the staircase of the hotel, and on reaching the sixth floor, out of breath, and with wandering eyes, she perceived Laurent, who was leaning over the banister awaiting her. She entered the garret, which was so small that she could barely turn round in it, and tearing off her hat with one hand leant against the bedstead in a faint. Through the lift-up window in the roof, which was wide open, the freshness of the evening fell upon the burning couch. The couple remained some time in this wretched little room, as though at the bottom of a hole. All at once, Thérèse heard a clock in the neighbourhood strike ten. She felt as if she would have liked to have been deaf. Nevertheless, she looked for her hat which she fastened to her hair with a long pin, and then seating herself, slowly murmured: “I must go.” Laurent fell on his knees before her, and took her hands. “Good-bye, till we see each other again,” said she, without moving. “No, not till we see each other again!” he exclaimed, “that is too indefinite. When will you come again?” She looked him full in the face. “Do you wish me to be frank with you?” she inquired. “Well, then, to tell you the truth, I think I shall come no more. I have no pretext, and I cannot invent one.” “Then we must say farewell,” he remarked. “No, I will not do that!” she answered. She pronounced these words in terrified anger. Then she added more gently, without knowing what she was saying, and without moving from her chair: “I am going.” Laurent reflected. He was thinking of Camille. “I wish him no harm,” said he at length, without pronouncing the name: “but really he is too much in our way. Couldn’t you get rid of him, send him on a journey somewhere, a long way off?” “Ah! yes, send him on a journey!” resumed the young woman, nodding her head. “And do you imagine a man like that would consent to travel? There is only one journey, that from which you never return. But he will bury us all. People who are at their last breath, never die.”