“Five o’clock. Suppose he were there now!... Ah, I have a feeling that he is there to-day, that I shall see him!... Good-bye till to-morrow.”
She hastened away swiftly, leaving her companion speechless. Hope filled her breast, a hope each time disappointed, but never discouraged.
“Mme. Armand is coming back alone this afternoon,” said the people at Domfront. “What a hurry she’s in!”
She crossed the threshold of the Logis without stopping and went straight to the summer-house. Her eyes longed to pierce the screen of foliage that hid the hill from sight. She had not a doubt that he was there; and, at the same time, she felt the madness of her certainty.
She arrived. Her glance at once swept the rocks. He was there.
She was on the point of throwing him handfuls of kisses, or else of kneeling down and stretching out her arms to him across space, but she saw him running down the slope and she herself started running towards him, as fast as she could.
She arrived all out of breath at the bottom of the garden, broke down the little wooden gate, which was slow in opening, and sprang into the road at the moment when Guillaume crossed the bridge:
“Gilberte!”
“Guillaume!”
They assured themselves with a glance that nothing was changed in either of them and then silently followed the road that skirts the Varenne. They dared not speak, overcome with the importance of the words which they were about to pronounce. Besides, excitement gripped them by the throat.