She still stood silent and motionless. She foresaw both the impossibility of the struggle with her mother and the equal impossibility of marriage with M. de Marthenay. She did not know how much we can shape our destiny when we dare to grasp it with a firm hand. Love was opening all the great gateways of life to her, and she was terrified. What had she done to God that her choice should depend on herself alone? Why could she not follow a smooth and easy path? Thus paralysed with fear she could make no choice.
Why did he not talk about his grief? She was so agitated that she would have been moved to pity and would have given her promise. If he had tried to draw her to him as he had already done, she would not have refused him. She would at last have laid her head on his brave heart.
But he wanted her as a free gift. He waited and as this wait was prolonged he looked more and more pityingly at the poor child whose love was so wavering. Neither shame, nor shyness, nor natural reserve could explain her silence. Their case was too grave that she should hesitate to speak out if she wished to. The obstacles which separated them were only the barriers of vanity and selfishness, not difficult to overcome. She loved, but still she said nothing. He recognised that their paths were not the same. He drew himself up to his full height in disdainful pity. He was able, however, to master his pride sufficiently to say gently to her:
“No, Alice, don’t promise me anything. I give you back the word that you gave Paule for me. You haven’t the strength to love.”
In a firm, even voice he added, as he let her little, cold, unresisting hand fall:
“Good-bye, Mademoiselle Dulaurens, we shall never meet again.”
She saw him disappear down the path where the shadows of the dying day were beginning to fade. He did not turn back. He was already out of sight and yet she still looked after him. The woods were quivering in the evening breeze.
A leaf fell from a tree and in its flight it touched Alice’s hair. At this foreboding of winter she felt death round her—within her.
Like two gay dancing phantoms Isabelle and Jean appeared under the oaks. They found her rooted to the spot where Marcel had left her. When they were about to speak to her, she fled without a word and ran towards the house to hide her misery. It did not occur to her to tell her trouble to Jean Berlier, who could still have saved her from disaster. She reached her room, hid her face in her hands, and wept. But even in her grief she did not think of struggling and gave herself up to the fate that she felt to be inevitable.
After Alice’s flight, Isabelle and Jean looked at each other astonished. “I don’t understand it,” he cried. “I understand quite well,” answered she. “Here’s another who is afraid. We are all alike nowadays. We want money and no risks. I know only one girl who would go to the ends of the world for love, in a dress that cost twopence.”