The clock struck eleven.
As it struck twelve, Jeanne turned back from the door, the lamp in her hand, the last echo of his footsteps faint in her ears. She stood for a moment, trance-like, staring at the yellow flame of the lamp, her eyes wide. Already it seemed impossible that he had been there.
She felt horribly, horribly tired, hardly any other sensation but that. She went upstairs, undressed rapidly, blew out the light, and lay down beside little Maurice. She slept with him, that she might be sure to watch over him carefully enough, fearing that she might not rise in the cold so readily for him as for the others. Almost at once she fell into a profound sleep.
She woke with a start, to find herself standing up in her nightgown in the darkness, on the cold floor, in the middle of the room, the cold, damp wind blowing in on her from the black opening of the window. And at once she knew what had happened—knew it as though some one had just finished telling her.
André had not been there at all that day. He had been killed, that was it, and her intense longing had brought his spirit straight to her for a moment, and all the rest she had imagined.
Staring into the darkness, she saw it all with perfect lucidity. That was why he had looked so dim and shadowy when she had first seen him in the hall; that was why his smile had been so strange. That was why the children had seemed so queer; she understood now, it was because they saw no one there and because they heard her talking to herself.
Did she, then, often talk to herself, that they should do no more than look sidelong and askance when she did it? Yes, she must have been slowly going near the edge of dementia during the last weeks, and quite over the edge into madness the last five days of suspense.
A deadly chill shook her, so that her teeth chattered loudly in the darkness, audible even to her ears. What did it matter? André had been killed. There was no meaning in anything any more.
The cold settled around her heart, an icy flood, and congealed in her veins. She felt herself to be dying and ran out to meet delivering death.