I do not know what she is saying; I draw nearer to see her lips; I answer her, “I am always thinking of you.”

Hearing these words, she is silent.  Her silence grows greater and greater in the shadows.  I have drawn still nearer; so near that I feel on my cheek the wing-beat of her breath; so near that her silence caresses me.

Then, to keep myself in countenance, or to smoke, I have struck a match, but I make no use of the gleam at my finger-tips.  It shows me Marie, quivering a little; it gilds her pale face.  A smile arises on her face; I have seen her full of that smile.

My eyes grow dim and my hands tremble.  I wish she would speak.

“Tell me——­” Her down-bent neck unfolds, and she lifts her head to speak.  At that moment, by the light of the flame that I hold, whose great revealing kindness I am guarding, our eyes fall on an inscription scratched in the wall—­a heart—­and inside it two initials, H-S.  Ah, that design was made by me one evening.  Little Helen was lolling there then, and I thought I adored her.  For a moment I am overpowered by this apparition of a mistake, bygone and forgotten.  Marie does not know; but seeing those initials, and divining a presence between us, she dare not speak.

As the match is on the point of going out I throw it down.  The little flame’s last flicker has lighted up for me the edge of the poor black serge skirt, so worn that it shines a little, even in the evening, and has shown me the girl’s shoe.  There is a hole in the heel of the stocking, and we have both seen it.  In quick shame, Marie draws her foot under her skirt; and I—­I tremble still more that my eyes have touched a little of her maiden flesh, a fragment of her real innocence.

Gently she stands up in the grayness, and puts an end to this first fate-changing meeting.

We return.  The obscurity is outstretched all around and against us.  Together and alone we go into the following chambers of the night.  My eyes follow the sway of her body in her dress against the vaguely luminous background of the wall.  Amid the night her dress is night also; she is there—­wholly!  There is a singing in my ears; an anthem fills the world.

In the street, where there are no more wayfarers, she walks on the edge of the causeway.  So that my face may be on a level with hers, I walk beside her in the gutter, and the cold water enters my boots.

And that evening, inflated by mad longing, I am so triumphantly confident that I do not even remember to shake her hand.  By her door I said to her, “To-morrow,” and she answered, “Yes.”

On one of the days which followed, finding myself free in the afternoon, I made my way to the great populous building of flats where she lives.  I ascended two dark flights of steps, closely encaged, and followed a long elbowed corridor.  Here it is.  I knock and enter.  Complete silence greets me.  There is no one, and acute disappointment runs through me.