Though less wretched, Rose still suffered. One evening, when she was undressing to go to bed, she called to mind all the liberties she had permitted. No detail was spared her, and it was in vain that her body revolted; along her nerves she felt the now shameful shudder of her former voluptuousness. She threw herself into her bed and soon, in the warmth, the imaginary contacts grew more numerous and precise. Then, losing her head, she yielded and went to sleep in a trance of pleasure.
Accordingly, in the mornings, she was apt to be a little peevish. Leonor seemed, at these moments, to lose all he had gained in the afternoons; but he was not disturbed by it. He knew that characters change according to the time of day, as they change according to the season. Happy in being able to hope for everything, he waited without impatience. Exorcising Rose demanded a whole morning of Leonor's company. The sound of his voice, rather than his words, calmed her possessed spirit. She would end by doubting the very existence of the spell from which she had been released and, by the time lunch was over, she was a child smiling at love.
Some evenings the crisis was very intense. Hardly had she entered her room when she seemed to receive a kind of imperious injunction to look at herself in the glass. Standing there, she would press her shoulders feverishly. Then she felt herself lifted up and carried to her bed, at the mercy of the demon of love. At other times the obsession was less malignant and she was able to attempt some resistance. The fall was slow, gradual and sometimes incomplete. She noticed that she had more peace and more strength on the evenings when she had, by her attitude, encouraged Leonor to make some tenderer utterance, and that fact caused her great joy. For she loved her exorcist; like a sick woman full of confidence, she loved her doctor.
Now she appeared more humble and at the same time almost provocative. She allowed her eyes to rest more often and for a longer time on the young man's face. She even came to studying his face when he was looking, and, though she dropped her eyes quickly at the first alarm, Leonor noticed it.
"She loves me, she loves me. Ah! this time she will listen to me, and perhaps she will speak."
But, by dint of loving innocently, Leonor had become shy; and several days passed in the motions of the eyes and heart. Rose derived great consolation from them. One evening, when the obsession had almost left her in peace and she was about to go to sleep victorious, she suddenly saw herself once more in the drawing room. Leonor was offering her a marvellous flower of a kind she did not recognise. She took it and when she smelt it felt an inexpressible sweetness slowly penetrate her whole being; she was asleep.
She awoke full of joy, a thing that had not happened since the day of her great grief. She was smiling at Leonor before she had even seen him. They met on the stairs. Leonor heard a door slam, the sound of hurrying feet. He drew back to make passage room. It was Rose. Playfully, as she had already allowed him to do, he made as though to bar her way.
"You shan't pass," he said.
"Very well, I won't pass."
And she fell into the open arms that closed at once round her body—a happy prisoner.