roadside, in by-roads or else
at twilight on the edge of a field, when he was going home with his
horses and she was driving her cows home to the stable.

He felt himself carried, cast toward her by a strong impulse of his heart
and body. He would have liked to squeeze her, strangle her, eat her, make
her part of himself. And he trembled with impotence, impatience, rage, to
think she did not belong to him entirely, as if they were one being.

People gossiped about it in the countryside. They said they were engaged.
He had, besides, asked her if she would be his wife, and she had answered
"Yes."

They, were waiting for an opportunity to talk to their parents about it.

But, all at once, she stopped coming to meet him at the usual hour. He
did not even see her as he wandered round the farm. He could only catch a
glimpse of her at mass on Sunday. And one Sunday, after the sermon, the
priest actually published the banns of marriage between Victoire-Adelaide
Martin and Josephin-Isidore Vallin.

Benoist felt a sensation in his hands as if the blood had been drained
off. He had a buzzing in the ears; and could hear nothing; and presently
he perceived that his tears were falling on his prayer book.

For a month he stayed in his room. Then he went back to his work.

But he was not cured, and it was always in his mind. He avoided the roads
that led past her home, so that he might not even see the trees in the
yard, and this obliged him to make a great circuit morning and evening.

She was now married to Vallin, the richest farmer in the district.
Benoist and he did not speak now, though they had been comrades from
childhood.

One evening, as Benoist was passing the town hall, he heard that she was
enceinte. Instead of experiencing a feeling of sorrow, he experienced, on
the contrary, a feeling of relief. It was over, now, all over. They were
more separated by that than by her marriage. He really preferred that it
should be so.

Months passed, and more months. He caught sight of her, occasionally,
going to the village with a heavier step than usual. She blushed as she
saw him, lowered her head and quickened her pace. And he turned out of
his way so as not to pass her and meet her glance.

He dreaded the thought that he might one morning meet her face to face,
and be obliged to speak to her. What could he say to her now, after all
he had said formerly, when he held her hands as he kissed her hair beside
her cheeks? He o