The morning began to arrive. And still the School-teacher waited. No one came. The room was profoundly silent. The breath of the morning entering, distilled a faint perfume out of the little bunches of wild flowers, a vague odor that arose and sweetened the room. The night was dead. The day was beginning to be born. Then it was that the one for whom the School-teacher waited finally came.
There was a faint sound outside, as though one approached walking softly on the grass, as though a hand passed gently along the door.
The School-teacher rose.
The latch of the door moved, the door turned noiselessly on its hinges, and the woman who had fled from the Schoolteacher into the forest entered.
The whole aspect of the woman was changed.
The purple stains on her mouth, the powder on her face, were gone. Her hair, too, had been cleansed of its cheap scent. It clung in damp strands about her face. The swagger, the defiance, the loud notes and color had gone out of her. And that which remained after these things were gone, now alone existed—as though the whole fabric of the woman had been washed with water. The woman put her hand swiftly to her face, to her hair; she caught her breath.
“Oh!” she said, “I thought you were asleep.”
The School-teacher's voice was incomparably gentle.
“No,” he said, “I have been waiting for you.”
“Then you thought I would come?”