Livette’s suffering became more intense. She passed whole days sitting at her window.
One evening, Renaud was sitting beside her, in silence, while the grandmother and Père Audiffret were dining in the room below. The room was dimly lighted by a lamp. Suddenly Livette sprang to her feet, then fell back, crying:
“There she is! there she is! No! no! don’t go with her! I don’t want you to! no, no, Jacques!”
Renaud also had risen, and was staring vacantly at Livette; following the direction of her gaze, he began to tremble. Outside the window stood a pale, uncertain, but very recognizable spectre, the gipsy herself! He had no sooner recognized her than she disappeared, after making a significant sign to him, that said: “Come!”
It was not a vision of the sick girl’s imagination, for he, too, had seen it!
Perhaps the fever-laden island had sown its poison in the blood of both. The germs of fever were taking root and flourishing in them. The blight of the paluns implanted in their brains, as in a cloudy mirror, the image everlastingly repeated of the familiar plaintive objects of the desert, with which the current of their thoughts was mingled.
“Don’t go! don’t go! my Jacques!”
She dragged herself along the floor on her knees, shaken with sobs, imploring the drover, as she clung with both hands to his jacket.
The father and grandmother had hastened to the room.
The father, too, was sobbing, and knew not what to do. The grandmother slowly seated herself by the bed on which Renaud had gently laid Livette.