She turned sharply, in a frightened, startled way, and for a moment stared at him; and then, even in the darkness, he could see her face grow deathly white, while her hand groped blindly out behind her for support.
"Dead!" she whispered. "I was praying to the bon Dieu for you, Jean. And now you are dead, and you have come to me."
"Ay!" he cried blunderingly in his joy. "Ay, that is true, Marie-Louise! Jean Laparde is dead!"
She moaned a little, and shrank back, and pressed her hands to her face.
"Dead!" she whispered again. "You are dead, Jean, and you have come to me."
She was swaying as he caught her in his arms. Fool, accursed fool, that he had not understood!
"No, no; Marie-Louise, chérie, ma bien-aimée!" he said tenderly. "See, are my arms not real about you? See, it is I, it is really I! It is not death, it is love that has brought me! See, Marie-Louise, lie very still for a little while in my arms, and you will not be any more afraid."
It seemed as though for a space she were in a faint, so white her face was, so quiet she lay; and then her hand felt out and touched his shoulder, and his face, and his hair in a wondering, hesitant, incredulous way.
Her lips moved.
"You—you are like Jean as he used to be before he went away to the grand monde."