"I hate you!… Why did you ever come?"
She wrenched herself away from him. She turned her back on him and shook with rage and grief. She hated him mortally. Christophe lay still, appalled. In the silence Anna heard his choking breathing: she turned suddenly and flung her arms round his neck:
"Poor Christophe!" she said. "I have made you suffer…."
For the first time he heard pity in her voice.
"Forgive me," she said.
He said:
"We must forgive each other." She raised herself as though she found it hard to breathe. She sat there, with bowed back, overwhelmed, and said:
"I am ruined…. It is God's will, He has betrayed me…. What can I do against Him?"
She stayed for a long time like that, then lay down again and did not stir. A faint light proclaimed the dawn. In the half-light he saw her sorrowful face so near his. He murmured:
"The day."