o
more, was conclusive evidence; this sudden silence, the tenderness she
had shown in the final moments, that pale face, and that kiss, confirmed
me in the belief that all was over, and that I had broken forever
whatever bond had united us. As surely as she slept now, as soon as I
gave her cause for further suffering she would sleep in eternal rest. The
clock struck and I felt that the last hour had carried away my life with
hers.

Unwilling to call any one, I lighted Brigitte's lamp; I watched its
feeble flame and my thoughts seemed to flicker in the darkness like its
uncertain rays.

Whatever I had said or done, the idea of losing Brigitte had never
occurred to me up to this time. A hundred times I wished to leave her,
but who has loved and is ready to say just what is in his heart? That was
in times of despair or of anger. So long as I knew that she loved me, I
was sure of loving her; stern necessity had just arisen between us for
the first time. I experienced a dull languor and could distinguish
nothing clearly. What my mind understood, my soul recoiled from
accepting. "Come," I said to myself, "I have desired it and I have done
it; there is not the slightest hope that we can live together; I am
unwilling to kill this woman, so I have no alternative but to leave her.
It is all over; I shall go away tomorrow."

And all the while I was thinking neither of my responsibility, nor of the
past, nor future; I thought neither of Smith nor his connection with the
affair; I could not say who had led me there, or what I had done during
the last hour. I looked at the walls of the room and thought that all I
had to do was to wait until to-morrow and decide what carriage I would
take.

I remained for a long time in this strange calm, just as the man who
receives a thrust from a poignard feels at first only the cold steel and
can often travel some distance ere he becomes weak, and his eyes start
from their sockets and he realizes what has happened. But drop by drop
the blood flows, the ground under his feet becomes red, death comes; the
man, at its approach, shudders with horror and falls as though struck by
a thunderbolt. Thus, apparently calm, I awaited the coming of misfortune;
I repeated in a low voice what Brigitte had said, and I placed near her
all that I supposed she would need for the night; then I looked at her,
then went to the window and pressed my forehead against the pane peering
out at a sombre and lowering sky