“May God preserve my health! My task is not finished.” She was thinking of Paule, whose uncertain fate caused her anxiety and attached her still to life. Instinctively she turned round to look at her. But the drawing-room door was shut. She felt compelled to conduct the ladies to their carriage. They got in and asked for Madame de Marthenay, who had stayed behind.
“I will tell her,” said Madame Guibert, climbing the stairs with difficulty.
Alice, left alone with Paule, had at last allowed her tears to flow.
“Paule, my dear Paule, won’t you let me kiss you? I have cried so much. If you only knew! I have felt such sorrow since ... since he is gone— Ah, you cannot know!”
Paule, standing speechless and bewildered, gazed wonderingly at this elegant young woman with the innocent, beautiful features, who was imploring her now. She thought of the past.
“What is the good of it?” she said. And, although she had noticed Alice’s hollow eyes and white face, she added between her teeth: “Are you not a little to blame for our unhappiness?”
To her the refusal of this weak, clinging, childish creature was responsible for that familiar anticipation of death which she had so often, after the interview at La Chênaie, caught in Marcel’s speech and in his casual talk. She who now stood before her weeping, had formerly not a single word to send to her brother to give him joy in life and the inspiration of confidence even in the midst of danger. Had she been indifferent, she would not have been guilty; it was her cowardice which had triumphed over her love.
But Alice sobbed: “Oh, I am unhappier than you.” Her despair was so evidently real that Paule was touched and took her old friend into her arms. As of old in joy, so now the two women mingled their tears in sorrow.
“I loved him,” Alice said in a low voice.
“Why did you not want him?”