no more ... because you love
me."

She spoke these last words with a sort of timorous hesitation and
without taking her eyes from Philippe's face, as though expecting him to
give an answer that would calm the sudden anguish with which she was
torn.

He was silent. His eyes were dull, his forehead creased with wrinkles.
He seemed to be reflecting and did not appear to reck that Suzanne was
there so close to him, her arms clinging to his arms.

She whispered:

"Philippe.... Philippe...."

Had he heard? He remained impassive. Then, little by little, Suzanne
released her embrace. Her hands fell to her sides. She gazed with
infinite distress upon the man she loved and, suddenly, sank into a
heap, weeping:

"Oh, I am mad!... I am mad! Why did I speak?"

It was a horrible ordeal for her, after the hope that had excited her,
and this time it was real tears that flowed down her cheeks. The sound
of the sobs roused Philippe from his dream. He listened to it sadly and
then began to pace the room. Moved though he was, what was passing
within him troubled him even more. He loved Suzanne!

It did not for a second occur to him to deny the truth. From the first
sentences that Suzanne had spoken and without his having to seek for
further proofs, he had admitted his love even as one admits the presence
of a thing that one sees and touches. And that was why Suzanne, at the
mere sight of Philippe's attitude, had suddenly realized the imprudence
which she had committed in speaking: Philippe, once warned, was escaping
her. He was one of those men who become conscious of their duty at the
very moment when they perceive their fault.

"Philippe!" she said, once more. "Philippe!"

As he did not reply, she took his hand again and whispered:

"You love me, though ... you love me.... Well, then, if you love me ..."

The tears did not disfigure her exquisite face. On the contrary, grief
decked her with a new, graver and more touching beauty. And she ended,
ingenuously enough:

"Then, if you love me, why do you repel me? Surely, when one loves, one
does not repel the thing one loves.... And you love me...."

The pretty mouth was all entreaty. Philippe observed its voluptuous
action. It was as though the two lips delighted in uttering words of
love and as though they could pronounce no others.

He turned away his eyes to escape the fascination and, controlling
himself, mastering his voice so that she might not perceive its tremor,