She looked at him in her turn and they smiled at each other. But immediately her eyes went to her mother, and, the joy of her heart confirmed, she said:
“Mother is going to Tonkin with us. We will all be together out there except my sister Marguerite, the nun.”
Now Jean understood the last argument Madame Guibert had used to test her daughter’s heart. And although he had doubts about this journey and instinctively suspected the generous falsehood, he pretended to rejoice with the two women.
“My children, my dear children,” Madame Guibert cried. “God has given us great happiness. May His blessing be upon you, upon your new home, upon your family! Jean, kiss your bride.”
The young man’s lips touched a cheek that was still wet. Thus their first kiss was mingled with sadness, as if to symbolize their union for life, in sorrow and in joy.
Madame Guibert had gone to the end of the drawing-room, and was looking at Marcel’s photograph; but at this late hour it was more in memory than in the portrait that she could see her son’s features. Jean and Paule came up to her.
“How happy Marcel would be,” said the young man. “I think now he knew my heart before I did myself.”
And the girl was thinking of her brother’s words: “Don’t be anxious, you will be happy some day.” Could he, who bore the fatal sign upon his brow and walked towards death with a sure step, have read the future then, with eyes that saw into another world? Was it his detachment from this life that enabled him to understand the affinity of souls and the secret of destinies? Paule’s sisterly devotion was glad to have Marcel associated with her own love.
The glowing struggle of the daylight with the dusk was over. Day was dead.
“I must go,” murmured Jean to his fiancée. And immediately she felt sad. Already all her thoughts were with her future husband and this first separation was a cause of grief.