b-warning, Luce and Pierre, who
did not want to get home too late, went on their way chatting gaily.
They followed an old dark and narrow street near Saint Sulpice. They had
just passed a hackney coach standing idle, both horse and driver asleep,
near the gate of a _porte cochere_. They were twenty steps away and on
the other sidewalk, when everything about them shuddered: a red,
blinding flash, a roll of thunder, a rain of loosened tiles and broken
windowpanes! Near the buttress of a house which made a sharp projection
into the street they flattened themselves against the wall and their
bodies interlaced. By the gleam of the explosion they had seen their own
eyes full of love and dismay. And when the darkness fell again Luce's
voice was saying:

"No, Pierre. I want no more."

And Pierre felt upon his own lips the lips and the teeth of the
passionate girl. They remained palpitating in the darkness of the
street. Some paces away some men, issuing from the houses, picked the
dying coachman from among the remnants of the smashed vehicle; they
passed quite close to them with the unfortunate man whose blood was
falling drop by drop. Luce and Pierre remained petrified; so closely
knit together that when consciousness revived in them it seemed as if
their bodies had been naked in the pressure. They loosened their hands
and lips grown together which drank of the loved one like roots. And,
both of them, they began to tremble.

"Let us go home!" said Luce, invaded by a sacred terror.

She dragged him away.

"Luce! you will not let me leave this life before ...?"

"Oh, God," said Luce, squeezing his arm, "that thought would be worse
than death!"

"My love, my love!" they kept repeating, one to the other.

Once more they came to a stop.

"When shall I be yours?" said Pierre.

(He could not have dared to ask: "When shall you be mine?")

Luce noticed this and was touched by it.

"Adored one," she said to him," ... very soon! Let's not hurry. You can
not desire it more than I wish it!... Let us stay this way a little
while.... It is splendid!... This month longer, right to the end!..."

"Until Easter?" he murmured.

(This year Easter was the last day in March.)

"Yes, at the Resurrection."

"Ah," quoth he, "there's the Death before Resurrection."

"Hush!" she interposed, closing his mouth with her own.

They drew away from each other.

"This night, it's our betrothal," whispered Pierre.

Huddled against each