Laurent reflected. He was thinking of Camille.
“I wish him no harm,” said he at length, without pronouncing the name: “but really he is too much in our way. Couldn’t you get rid of him, send him on a journey somewhere, a long way off?”
“Ah! yes, send him on a journey!” resumed the young woman, nodding her head. “And do you imagine a man like that would consent to travel? There is only one journey, that from which you never return. But he will bury us all. People who are at their last breath, never die.”
Then came a silence which was broken by Laurent who remarked:
“I had a day dream. Camille met with an accident and died, and I became your husband. Do you understand?”
“Yes, yes,” answered Thérèse, shuddering.
Then, abruptly bending over the face of Laurent, she smothered it with kisses, and bursting into sobs, uttered these disjoined sentences amidst her tears:
“Don’t talk like that, for if you do, I shall lack the strength to leave you. I shall remain here. Give me courage rather. Tell me we shall see one another again. You have need of me, have you not? Well, one of these days we shall find a way to live together.”
“Then come back, come back to-morrow,” said Laurent.
“But I cannot return,” she answered. “I have told you. I have no pretext.”