ammering: "Oh, do not lie! I suffer too much!"

Then, letting her head fall on this man's knees, she sobbed.

He could see only the back of her neck, a mass of blond hair, mingled
with many white threads, and he was filled with immense pity, immense
grief.

Seizing that heavy hair in both hands he raised her head violently,
turning toward himself two bewildered eyes, from which tears were
flowing. And then on those tearful eyes he pressed his lips many times,
repeating:

"Any! Any! My dear, my dear Any!"

Then she, attempting to smile, and speaking in that hesitating voice of
children when choking with grief, said:

"Oh, my friend, only tell me that you still love me a little."

He embraced her again, even more tenderly than before.

"Yes, I love you, my dear Any."

She arose, sat down beside him again, seized his hands, looked at him,
and said tenderly:

"It is such a long time that we have loved each other. It should not end
like this."

He pressed her close to him, asking:

"Why should it end?"

"Because I am old, and because Annette resembles too much what I was
when you first knew me."

Now it was his turn to close her sad lips with his fingers, saying:

"Again! I beg that you will speak no more of that. I swear to you that
you deceive yourself."

"Oh, if you will only love me a little," she repeated.

"Yes, I love you," he said again.

They remained a long time without speaking, hands clasped in hands,
deeply moved and very sad. At last she broke the silence, murmuring:

"Oh, the hours that remain for me to live will not be gay!"

"I will try to make them sweet to you."

The shadow of the clouded sky that precedes the twilight by two hours
was darkening the drawing-room, burying them little by little in the
gray dimness of an autumn evening.

The clock struck.

"It is a long time since we came in here," said she. "You must go, for
someone might come, and we are not calm."

He arose, clasped her close, kissing her half-open lips, as he used
to do; then they crossed the two drawing-rooms, arm in arm, like a
newly-married pair.

"Good-by, my friend."

"Good-by, my friend."

And the portiere fell behind him.

He went downstairs, turned toward the Madeleine, and began to walk
without knowing what he was doing, dazed as if from a blow, his legs
weak, his heart hot and palpitating as if something burning shook within
his breast. For two or three hours, perhaps four, he walked straigh