henomenon. The garden was still
illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the
ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as
though a rain of ashes were falling.

"Then . . . all is over between us?"

His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head
to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed
one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future:
"What will become of me?" murmured the man. And like an echo her lips
repeated, "What will become of me?"

All had been said. Hopeless words came between the two like an obstacle
momentarily increasing in size, impelling them in opposite directions.
Why prolong the painful interview? . . . Marguerite showed the ready and
energetic decision of a woman who wishes to bring a scene to a close.
"Good-bye!" Her face had assumed a yellowish cast, her pupils had become
dull and clouded like the glass of a lantern when the light dies out.
"Good-bye!" She must go to her patient.

She went away without looking at him, and Desnoyers instinctively went
in the opposite direction. As he became more self-controlled and turned
to look at her again, he saw her moving on and giving her arm to the
blind man, without once turning her head.

He now felt convinced that he should never see her again, and became
oppressed by an almost suffocating agony. And could two beings, who had
formerly considered the universe concentrated in their persons, thus
easily be separated forever? . . .

His desperation at finding himself alone made him accuse himself
of stupidity. Now his thoughts came tumbling over each other in a
tumultuous throng, and each one of them seemed to him sufficient to have
convinced Marguerite. He certainly had not known how to express himself.
He would have to talk with her again . . . and he decided to remain in
Lourdes.

He passed a night of torture in the hotel, listening to the ripple of
the river among its stones. Insomnia had him in his fierce jaws, gnawing
him with interminable agony. He turned on the light several times, but
was not able to read. His eyes looked with stupid fixity at the patterns
of the wall paper and the pious pictures around the room which had
evidently served as the lodging place of some rich traveller. He
remained motionless and as abstracted as an Oriental who thinks himself
into an absolute lack of thought. One idea only was dancing