Her vows, her kisses, her joy in his presence, her tremulous hopes of pleasing him rushed back to him. Her fair figure in its setting of light, warmth, comfort, and luxury could not have been more alluring to him. Yet he never hesitated for an instant in his resolution that all the things she stood for were things that must be lost to him for ever.
She was standing very erect, looking into the fire. Her gown was pink and her bosom covered with lace. She held a prayer-book in her left hand.
While Luc still waited, lightly holding the curtain apart, she moved and lowered the lamp.
“Mademoiselle,” said Luc.
Her shaking hand shot the wick into darkness.
“Why, Luc,” she cried in a trembling voice, “the light has gone out!”
He noted the relief in her tone, and guessed something of the effort to which she had nerved herself; it made him the stronger.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, “it is very gracious of you to permit me to take this farewell of you.”
Her voice answered weakly out of the fire-flushed darkness—
“Farewell? Farewell?”