"I shall go alone. We shall start very soon."
It had been raining. A pale winter sun, stealing through the heavy clouds, lit up the lawns and shrubberies. Paul went along a row of hot-houses and climbed an artificial rockery whence trickled the thin stream of a waterfall which formed a large pool set in a frame of dark fir trees and alive with swans and wild duck.
At the end of the pool was a terrace adorned with statues and stone benches. And there he saw Élisabeth.
Paul underwent an indescribable emotion. He had not spoken to his wife since the outbreak of war. Since that day, Élisabeth had suffered the most horrible trials and had suffered them for the simple reason that she wished to appear in her husband's eyes as a blameless wife, the daughter of a blameless mother.
And now he was about to meet her again at a time when none of the accusations which he had brought against the Comtesse Hermine could be rebuffed and when Élisabeth herself had roused Paul to such a pitch of indignation by her presence at Prince Conrad's supper-party! . . .
But how long ago it all seemed! And how little it mattered! Prince Conrad's blackguardism, the Comtesse Hermine's crimes, the ties of relationship that might unite the two women, all the struggles which Paul had passed through, all his anguish, all his rebelliousness, all his loathing, were but so many insignificant details, now that he saw at twenty paces from him his unhappy darling whom he loved so well. He no longer thought of the tears which she had shed and saw nothing but her wasted figure, shivering in the wintry wind.
He walked towards her. His steps grated on the gravel path; and Élisabeth turned round.
She did not make a single gesture. He understood, from the expression of her face, that she did not see him, really, that she looked upon him as a phantom rising from the mists of dreams and that this phantom must often float before her deluded eyes.
She even smiled at him a little, such a sad smile that Paul clasped his hands and was nearly falling on his knees:
"Élisabeth. . . . Élisabeth," he stammered.