She thanked me for my forbearance, though with only a pathetic look.
“Wouldn’t you like to go back into the town,” she said, “while I wait here for you? Please do. I shan’t mind, and it will make me feel less guilty.”
“Very well,” I answered, after a moment’s reflection—“if you are sure you won’t mind.”
“Quite sure,” she replied; and so I left her.
I knew why I had acquiesced; it was from policy, policy—I put it firmly to myself. It was from policy, also, no doubt, that I wandered no further than to the main platform—to which the other was related but locally—where I smoked and loitered aimlessly, acutely conscious all the time of my self-exile, obstinate to maintain it, yet never losing jealous mental sight of the forlorn figure awaiting my return a short stone’s-throw away. But I prevailed against inclination, even to the end, and did not return to Fifine until the train was actually in the station.
It was well past five when we started, and already there was an ominous drooping about the lids of the sky. Three-quarters of an hour’s run, with the stops at an halte or two and the little midway station of Fontvieille, would surely carry us into something deeper than twilight at Paradou, which was where we had to alight for our final destination. I had not before approached les Baux from this quarter, and was ignorant as to its distance from Paradou, the character of the way, and the possibility of procuring a vehicle of some sort. However, let come what would; we were in for it.
It was a wild little train, a mere giddy colt of a thing, which rattled us through scenery for ever growing more into communion with its untamed self—great stretches of rock-strewn heather, and clattering gullies, and vast ramparts of hill which continually rose about us more savage and menacing. We could see the white road creeping up the valley, as though stealthily pursuing us, now touching us with a coil and gliding swiftly from the contact, now receding to worm itself through purple thickets, whence it would reappear far ahead, wheeling as if to strike us as we passed. The light sank from the sky, like blood from a dying face; the country grew featureless first, and then slowly indistinguishable; once through the little sparkling oasis of Fontvieille, we found ourselves committed without reserve to uncompromising darkness. Still there was a twenty minutes run before us, and I found myself anxiously peering by and by for some sign of twinkling reassurance amidst the glooms ahead. There had been carriages at Fontvieille; should we find their like at Paradou-les-Baux? And while I was still peering, the train slowed down, stopped, and we were at the station.
It seemed a mere isolated platform in an otherwise lightless desolation. We were the only passengers who got out. With a rather sinking heart, I took, after the train had started on its way again, the solitary official—who seemed to combine in himself the parts of stationmaster, ticket-collector, signalman and porter—into my confidence.
“The distance to les Baux, Monsieur?”
“By road,” he answered brusquely, “three miles.”