smile still, saying: "No, it was _that_ which threw itself
upon me."

"That is not true; it was you."

"No, I swear to you it was _it_!"

After a few moments of silence, those instants when souls seem mingled
in glances, she murmured: "Oh, my dear, dear Olivier, to think that I
let you go, that I did not keep you with me!"

"It would have happened just the same, some day or another," he replied
with conviction.

They still gazed at each other, seeking to read each other's inmost
thoughts.

"I do not believe that I shall recover," he said at last. "I suffer too
much."

"Do you suffer very much?" she murmured.

"Oh, yes!"

Bending a little lower, she brushed his forehead, then his eyes, then
his cheeks with slow kisses, light, delicate as her care for him. She
barely touched him with her lips, with that soft little breath that
children give when they kiss. This lasted a long time, a very long
time. He let that sweet rain of caresses fall on him, and they seemed to
soothe and refresh him, for his drawn face twitched less than before.

"Any!" he said finally.

She ceased her kissing to listen to him.

"What, my friend?"

"You must make me a promise."

"I will promise anything you wish."

"If I am not dead before morning, swear to me that you will bring
Annette to me, just once, only once! I cannot bear to die without seeing
her again. . . . Think that . . . to-morrow . . . at this time perhaps
I shall have . . . shall surely have closed my eyes forever and that I
never shall see you again. I . . . nor you . . . nor her!"

She stopped him; her heart was breaking.

"Oh, hush . . . hush! Yes, I promise you to bring her!"

"You swear it?"

"I swear it, my friend. But hush, do not talk any more. You hurt me
frightfully--hush!"

A quick convulsion passed over his face; when it had passed he said:

"Since we have only a few minutes more to remain together, do not let us
lose them; let us seize them to bid each other good-by. I have loved you
so much----"

"And I," she sighed, "how I still love you!"

He spoke again:

"I never have had real happiness except through you. Only these last
days have been hard. . . . It was not your fault. . . . Ah, my poor Any,
how sad life is! . . . and how hard it is to die!"

"Hush, Olivier, I implore you!"

He continued, without listening to her: "I should have been a happy man
if you had not had your daughter. . . ."

"Hush! My God! Hush! . . ."

He seemed t