He turned his dim eyes upon me. ‘Does Madame Dupin,’ he said, ‘require to ask?’
‘No, no. It is true. I have seen and heard. But yet, when a little time passes, you know? one wonders; one asks one's self, was it a dream?’
‘That is what I fear,’ he said. ‘I, too, if life went on, might ask, notwithstanding all that has occurred to me, Was it a dream?’
‘M. Lecamus, you will forgive me if I hurt you. You saw—her?’
‘No. Seeing—what is seeing? It is but a vulgar sense, it is not all; but I sat at her feet. She was with me. We were one, as of old——.’ A gleam of strange light came into his dim eyes. ‘Seeing is not everything, Madame.’
‘No, M. Lecamus. I heard the dear voice of my little Marie.’
‘Nor is hearing everything,’ he said hastily. ‘Neither did she speak; but she was there. We were one; we had no need to speak. What is speaking or hearing when heart wells into heart? For a very little moment, only for a moment, Madame Dupin.’
I put out my hand to him; I could not say a word. How was it possible that she could go away again, and leave him so feeble, so worn, alone?
‘Only a very little moment,’ he said, slowly. ‘There were other voices—but not hers. I think I am glad it was in the spirit we met, she and I—I prefer not to see her till—after——’
‘Oh, M. Lecamus, I am too much of the world! To see them, to hear them—it is for this I long.’