Suddenly, he looked and saw her.

From the branches of a clump of bushes, already thickened by the spring,
there issued with a spectral slowness a celestial figure, a dress, a
divine face, almost a shining light beneath the moon.

Gilliatt felt his powers failing him: it was Deruchette.

Deruchette approached. She stopped. She walked back a few paces, stopped
again, then returned and sat upon the wooden bench. The moon was in the
trees, a few clouds floated among the pale stars; the sea murmured to
the shadows in an undertone, the town was sleeping, a thin haze was
rising from the horizon, the melancholy was profound. Deruchette
inclined her head, with those thoughtful eyes which look attentive yet
see nothing. She was seated sideways, and had nothing on her head but a
little cap untied, which showed upon her delicate neck the commencement
of her hair. She twirled mechanically a ribbon of her cap around one of
her fingers; the half light showed the outline of her hands like those
of a statue; her dress was of one of those shades which by night looked
white: the trees stirred as if they felt the enchantment which she shed
around her. The tip of one of her feet was visible. Her lowered eyelids
had that vague contraction which suggests a tear checked in its course,
or a thought suppressed. There was a charming indecision in the
movements of her arms, which had no support to lean on; a sort of
floating mingled with every posture. It was rather a gleam than a
light--rather a grace than a goddess; the folds of her dress were
exquisite; her face which might inspire adoration, seemed meditative,
like portraits of the Virgin. It was terrible to think how near she was:
Gilliatt could hear her breathe.

A nightingale was singing in the distance. The stirring of the wind
among the branches set in movement, the inexpressible silence of the
night. Deruchette, beautiful, divine, appeared in the twilight like a
creation from those rays and from the perfumes in the air. That
widespread enchantment seemed to concentre and embody itself
mysteriously in her; she became its living manifestation. She seemed the
outblossoming of all that shadow and silence.

But the shadow and silence which floated lightly about her weighed
heavily on Gilliatt. He was bewildered; what he experienced is not to be
told in words. Emotion is always new, and the word is always enough.
Hence the impossibility of expressing it. Joy is sometimes overwhelming.