“Perhaps he was ill.... They stop his letters. I’m not allowed to know anything.”
“Still, it’s strange he can’t find some means of getting a word to you.”
“If you only would, Thérèse.... Yes, I know your position is delicate....”
“Agree to go away, and then, perhaps....”
“I can’t go away from him.”
“But he’ll go away in any case, darling. He’ll be leaving Argelouse in a few weeks.”
“Oh, don’t, don’t. It’s too dreadful. And not a word from him to help me to live. I can’t bear it much longer: every moment I can’t help remembering the words of his that made me happiest: but I have said them over to myself so often, I’ve begun to be not quite sure whether he really did say them. Why, I can still hear his voice as he said to me, when we last met: ‘There is no one in my life but you....’ That is what he said,—or it may have been:—‘You are what is dearest to me in life.’ I can’t remember exactly.”
And with knitted brows she tried to recall the echo of those consoling words whose meaning seemed to her so overwhelming.
“Well, tell me what the young man is like.”
“You can’t imagine.”