THE STRANGER.

Your clothes are wet through; they are dripping on the flagstones.

THE OLD MAN.

It is only the bottom of my cloak that dipped in the water.—­You seem to be cold.  Your chest is covered with earth....  I did not notice it on the road on account of the darkness....

THE STRANGER.

I went into the water up to my waist.

THE OLD MAN.

Was it long after you found her when I came?

THE STRANGER.

A few minutes, barely.  I was going toward the village; it was already late, and the bank was getting dark.  I was walking with my eyes fixed on the river because it was lighter than the road, when I saw something strange a step or two from a clump of reeds....  I drew near and made out her hair, which had risen almost in a circle above her head, and whirled round, so, in the current.

[In the room, the two young girls turn their heads toward the window.]

THE OLD MAN.

Did you see the two sisters’ hair quiver on their shoulders?

THE STRANGER.

They turned their heads this way....  They simply turned their heads.  Perhaps I spoke too loud. [The two young girls resume their former position.] But they are already looking no longer....  I went into the water up to my waist and I was able to take her by the hand and pull her without effort to the shore....  She was as beautiful as her sisters are.

THE OLD MAN.

She was perhaps more beautiful....  I do not know why I have lost all courage....

THE STRANGER.

What courage are you talking of?  We have done all man could do....  She was dead more than an hour ago....

THE OLD MAN.

She was alive this morning!...  I met her coming out of church....  She told me she was going away; she was going to see her grandmother on the other side of the river where you found her....  She did not know when I should see her again....  She must have been on the point of asking me something; then she dared not and left me abruptly.  But I think of it now....  And I saw nothing!...  She smiled as they smile who choose to be silent, or who are afraid they will not be understood....  She seemed hardly to hope....  Her eyes were not clear and hardly looked at me....

THE STRANGER.

Some peasants told me they had seen her wandering on the river-bank until nightfall....  They thought she was looking for flowers....  It may be that her death....

THE OLD MAN.

We cannot tell....  What is there we can tell?...  She was perhaps of those who do not wish to speak, and every one of us bears in himself more than one reason for no longer living....  We cannot see in the soul as we see in that room.  They are all like that....  They only say trite things; and no one suspects aught....  You live for months by some one who is no longer of this world and whose