"What did I say? What was I talking about?"
"You said nothing, but you were suffering and sighing and groaning terribly."
Françoise's gentle voice seemed to drive away for good and all the cruel shadows of the night.
"But what were you dreaming about?" she asked. "I had the worst dream that it is possible to conceive, dear. I dreamt that you had ceased to love me."
"Oh, my Didier!"
She took him in her arms and he lay his head upon her breast
"Listen to my heart," she said.
They listened in silence. Didier did not speak again, and he pretended to yield to a sweet and refreshing sleep. But he did not sleep. He would not allow himself to sleep. He feared to be betrayed by his dreams. . . .
She, too, closed her eyes and made believe to sleep, and he really thought that she was asleep, but she knew that he was still awake.
They were deceiving each other for the first time in their married life. Didier, like a sufferer who seeks a corner in which to lie down so as to suffer less, laid down his secret there with her, and from that moment she did not doubt that the secret was worthy of its refuge.