ace,
forgetting she was burning her lips. But it was all her fault. She was
a little simpleton to have let a kiss upset her so completely. She
now clasped her lover to her bosom as if to beg forgiveness for having
pained him. These weeping children, so anxiously clasping one another,
made the dark night yet more woeful than before. In the distance, the
bells continued to complain unceasingly in panting accents.

"It is better to die," repeated Silvere, amidst his sobs; "it is better
to die."

"Don't cry; forgive me," stammered Miette. "I will be brave; I will do
all you wish."

When the young man had dried his tears: "You are right," he said; "we
cannot return to Plassans. But the time for cowardice has not yet come.
If we come out of the struggle triumphant, I will go for aunt Dide, and
we will take her ever so far away with us. If we are beaten----"

He stopped.

"If we are beaten?" repeated Miette, softly.

"Then be it as God wills!" continued Silvere, in a softer voice. "I most
likely shall not be there. You will comfort the poor woman. That would
be better."

"Ah! as you said just now," the young girl murmured, "it would be better
to die."

At this longing for death they tightened their embrace. Miette relied
upon dying with Silvere; he had only spoken of himself, but she felt
that he would gladly take her with him into the earth. They would there
be able to love each other more freely than under the sun. Aunt
Dide would die likewise and join them. It was, so to say, a rapid
presentiment, a desire for some strange voluptuousness, to which
Heaven, by the mournful accents of the tocsin, was promising early
gratification. To die! To die! The bells repeated these words with
increasing passion, and the lovers yielded to the calls of the darkness;
they fancied they experienced a foretaste of the last sleep, in the
drowsiness into which they again sank, whilst their lips met once more.

Miette no longer turned away. It was she, now, who pressed her lips to
Silvere's, who sought with mute ardour for the delight whose stinging
smart she had not at first been able to endure. The thought of
approaching death had excited her; she no longer felt herself blushing,
but hung upon her love, while he in faltering voice repeated: "I love
you! I love you!"

But at this Miette shook her head, as if to say it was not true. With
her free and ardent nature she had a secret instinct of the meaning and
purposes of life, and th