“Was it not you then who wrote to me?” he asked.
She hesitated for a second. What could she say in answer?
“Yes,” she whispered at last.
She could not betray Juliette after having saved her. An abyss lay before her into which she herself was slipping. Henri was now glancing round the two rooms in wonderment at finding them illumined and furnished in such gaudy style. He ventured to question her.
“Are these rooms yours?” he asked.
But she remained silent.
“Your letter upset me so,” he continued. “Hélène, you are hiding something from me. For mercy’s sake, relieve my anxiety!”
She was not listening to him; she was reflecting that he was indeed right in considering this to be an assignation. Otherwise, what could she have been doing there? Why should she have waited for him? She could devise no plausible explanation. She was no longer certain whether she had not given him this rendezvous. A network of chance and circumstance was enveloping her yet more tightly; there was no escape from it. Each second found her less able to resist.
“You were waiting for me, you were waiting for me!” he repeated passionately, as he bent his head to kiss her. And then as his lips met hers she felt it beyond her power to struggle further; but, as though in mute acquiescence, fell, half swooning and oblivious of the world, upon his neck.