“Yes, mademoiselle, as much as I can.”
Tears came into their eyes; Clotilde spoke again.
“Will you embrace me, Martine?”
“Oh, mademoiselle, very gladly.”
They were in each other’s arms when Pascal reentered the room. He pretended not to see them, doubtless afraid of giving way to his emotion. In an unnaturally loud voice he spoke of the final preparations for Clotilde’s departure, like a man who had a great deal on his hands and was afraid that the train might be missed. He had corded the trunks, a man had taken them away in a little wagon, and they would find them at the station. But it was only eight o’clock, and they had still two long hours before them. Two hours of mortal anguish, spent in unoccupied and weary waiting, during which they tasted a hundred times over the bitterness of parting. The breakfast took hardly a quarter of an hour. Then they got up, to sit down again. Their eyes never left the clock. The minutes seemed long as those of a death watch, throughout the mournful house.
“How the wind blows!” said Clotilde, as a sudden gust made all the doors creak.
Pascal went over to the window and watched the wild flight of the storm-blown trees.
“It has increased since morning,” he said. “Presently I must see to the roof, for some of the tiles have been blown away.”
Already they had ceased to be one household. They listened in silence to the furious wind, sweeping everything before it, carrying with it their life.
Finally Pascal looked for a last time at the clock, and said simply: