"Sacré, it is like Them," the man said. "I'd wondered why the cross was bare. I'm not one of your believers, but I can see how it would hurt a good woman like you."
"A good woman?" She questioned vaguely, as if in her innocence all were good. "Mon Dieu, I only know that it hurt."
He looked up at the crucifix. The sky was slowly, very slowly, lightening.
"It will soon be day," he said.
They were silent. And in the stillness they could feel the expectancy of dawn; the terse waiting for the light. The eager, anticipating stare of each was fixed upon the other's face.
The black of the sky merged very gradually into a pale, sickly gray. Far to the east quivered a thin streak of yellow light.
The three drab shadows of them cowered beneath the cross.
Mauve and pink and golden light spread slowly over the firmament.
"No, it can't be!" He muttered, his eyes upon the man's face—this man whom he had sat with those long hours before the dawn, whose hand he still held in his. He thought he caught the man's whispered "sacré!"
The woman was the first to speak.