"He does not want me!" she said to them; "he does not want me!—other women kiss him there!"
Then with a low fluttering sound like a bird's when its wings are shot, and yet it tries to rise, she hovered a moment over the water, and stretched her arms out to it.
"He does not want me!" she murmured; "he does not want me—and I am so tired. Dear God!"
Then she crept down, as a weary child creeps to its mother, and threw herself forward, and let the green dark waters take her where they had found her amidst the lilies, a little laughing yearling thing.
There she soon lay, quite quiet, with her face turned to the stars, and the starling poised above to watch her as she slept.
She had been only Bébée: the ways of God and man had been too hard for her.
When the messengers of Flamen came that day, they took him back a dead moss-rose and a pair of little wooden shoes worn through with walking.
"One creature loved me once," he says to women who wonder why the wooden shoes are there.