“I was obliged to leave off wearing my wedding ring, it hurt me. I wore your father’s for a long time, but the gold grew so thin that one day it broke in two like glass.” And she added, as if talking to herself:
“It did not matter. Only our feelings matter. And even death cannot alter them.”
Marcel looked at the portrait of his mother that he knew so well. It represented a woman, pretty and slender, looking like a shy young girl, whose tiny, tapering fingers held a flower, in the quaint old-fashioned way. Then he bent down and put his lips to the withered hand.
In memory he saw again the old lady, worn out and humiliated, coming home from La Chênaie after the refusal, and he thought of the rough way he had received her. Then with the rather haughty grace which lent so much value to his words of love, he said:
“My dear Mother, I have sometimes spoken rudely to you.”
She drew her hand gently away and stroked his cheek, smiling a sad yet bright smile, which told the whole story of a soul purified by suffering.
“Be quiet,” she murmured, brokenly. “I forbid you to blame yourself. Every day I thank God for the children He has given me.”
They were silent. Minutes passed, swiftly, irrevocably.
The approaching separation drew nearer, and they enjoyed to the full the happiness of their last moments together.
Nothing brings two lives closer than having suffered in common. When would they ever be together again as they were now in the golden charm of autumn, facing the fading trees, whose dying beauty could be seen through the window? Of these three souls, two had the presentiment that these hours would never come back. Madame Guibert sought in vain her usual bravery in farewell moments. Marcel was thinking of the solitudes of Africa which sometimes keep those who visit them; but, ashamed of his weakness, he banished with cheery words of hope these dark forebodings which cast shadows over the little country drawing-room.