It seemed to me as though I were looking into her soul, just as I had into Monsieur Chantal’s; that I was looking right from one end to the other of this humble life, so simple and devoted.  I felt an irresistible longing to question her, to find out whether she, too, had loved him; whether she also had suffered, as he had, from this long, secret, poignant grief, which one cannot see, know, or guess, but which breaks forth at night in the loneliness of the dark room.  I was watching her, and I could observe her heart beating under her waist, and I wondered whether this sweet, candid face had wept on the soft pillow and she had sobbed, her whole body shaken by the violence of her anguish.

I said to her in a low voice, like a child who is breaking a toy to see what is inside:  “If you could have seen Monsieur Chantal crying a while ago it would have moved you.”

She started, asking:  “What?  He was weeping?”

“Ah, yes, he was indeed weeping!”

“Why?”

She seemed deeply moved.  I answered: 

“On your account.”

“On my account?”

“Yes.  He was telling me how much he had loved you in the days gone by; and what a pang it had given him to marry his cousin instead of you.”

Her pale face seemed to grow a little longer; her calm eyes, which always remained open, suddenly closed so quickly that they seemed shut forever.  She slipped from her chair to the floor, and slowly, gently sank down as would a fallen garment.

I cried:  “Help! help!  Mademoiselle Pearl is ill.”

Madame Chantal and her daughters rushed forward, and while they were looking for towels, water and vinegar, I grabbed my hat and ran away.

I walked away with rapid strides, my heart heavy, my mind full of remorse and regret.  And yet sometimes I felt pleased; I felt as though I had done a praiseworthy and necessary act.  I was asking myself:  “Did I do wrong or right?” They had that shut up in their hearts, just as some people carry a bullet in a closed wound.  Will they not be happier now?  It was too late for their torture to begin over again and early enough for them to remember it with tenderness.

And perhaps some evening next spring, moved by a beam of moonlight falling through the branches on the grass at their feet, they will join and press their hands in memory of all this cruel and suppressed suffering; and, perhaps, also this short embrace may infuse in their veins a little of this thrill which they would not have known without it, and will give to those two dead souls, brought to life in a second, the rapid and divine sensation of this intoxication, of this madness which gives to lovers more happiness in an instant than other men can gather during a whole lifetime!

THE THIEF