But if you have ever felt this, you will know something of the feeling which was causing bitter pain to poor Therese, as she sat on the ground in her room, with her head on the window-sill, and her eyes filling with hot tears of shame. She had believed love to be eternal, and lo! it had died away out of her heart. She scarcely thought of his own coldness, of the studied way in which he had avoided any expression which should lead her to fancy they met on terms in any way resembling those in which they had parted. If his words had been like fire, she knew her feelings would not have been different--there, as I have said, was the sting. So ungenerous, so passionate, so weak! And yet she blamed herself for letting her love go. She was very young. She wanted some wise, tender heart on which to rest her head and so pour out her perplexities. But she had no one. Nannon, who had heard enough to make her furious, did not know what to say or what to think about it; she had sense enough to hold her tongue; at the same time it made a sort of restraint of which they were both conscious. Sister Gabrielle could not come to Therese; she was ministering to a more terrible grief in a sadder room. If she had come, I doubt whether the girl would not have been too shy to tell her pathetic little story. And so she sat there and let her eyes rest on the soft clouds and the Cathedral that carried upwards towards them its burden of earth voices, anguish, and joy; and wondered vaguely what was to come of it all, and whether she was to be left like a little waif and stray in this hard forgetful world. Pity her a little--my poor Therese! It was hard for her. She was solitary and young, with no one on whom to lavish innocent girlish caresses, no one to pet or to scold-- or to cherish her. Even the sweet joy of helpfulness, which had taken the bitterness out of her solitude, could not quite heal the pang. M. Deshoulieres did not come near her all that day. He, too, was suffering. A hundred hopes and fears and doubts gave him no peace. He cared not a _sou_ for this retractation, which to the cure seemed such a mighty matter; but his wrath blazed out against Fabien when he thought of Therese. He dared not go to her. If he had known of what her heart was full, he would have acted otherwise, but he felt as if, poor child, it would be an intrusion upon her humiliation. Her love had died; he thought of it as still struggling, hoping, clinging. They were not his own wrongs, but hers, which made him so stern and abrupt in his interview with Fabien and his lawyer on the following day.