s padrone that
he did not know how he was to go on without him. He did not remember his
former life, before the padrone came. Everything seemed to have begun for
him on that morning when the train with the padrone and the padrona in it
ran into the station of Cattaro. And now everything seemed to have
finished.

Artois did not say any more to him, but walked slowly up the mountain
leaning on his stick. Close to the top, by a heap of stones that was
something like a cairn, he saw, presently, a woman sitting. As he came
nearer she turned her head and saw him. She did not move. The soft rays
of the evening sun fell on her, and showed him that her square and rugged
face was pale and grave and, he thought, empty-looking, as if something
had deprived it of its former possession, the ardent vitality, the
generous enthusiasm, the look of swiftness he had loved.

When he came up to her he could only say: "Hermione, my friend--"

The loneliness of this mountain summit was a fit setting for her
loneliness, and these two solitudes, of nature and of this woman's soul,
took hold of Artois and made him feel as if he were infinitely small, as
if he could not matter to either. He loved nature, and he loved this
woman. And of what use were he and his love to them?

She stretched up her hand to him, and he bent down and took it and held
it.

"You said some day I should leave my Garden of Paradise, Emile."

"Don't hurt me with my own words," he said.

"Sit by me."

He sat down on the warm ground close to the heap of stones.

"You said I should leave the garden, but I don't think you meant like
this. Did you?"

"No," he said.

"I think you thought we should be unhappy together. Well, we were never
that. We were always very happy. I like to think of that. I come up here
to think of that; of our happiness, and that we were always kind and
tender to each other. Emile, if we hadn't been, if we had ever had even
one quarrel, even once said cruel things to each other, I don't think I
could bear it now. But we never did. God did watch us then, I think. God
was with me so long as Maurice was with me. But I feel as if God had gone
away from me with Maurice, as if they had gone together. Do you think any
other woman has ever felt like that?"

"I don't think I am worthy to know how some women feel," he said, almost
falteringly.

"I thought perhaps God would have stayed with me to help me, but I feel
as if He hadn't. I feel as if He ha