It had been raining, but the evening sky had cleared when Manon went out to search for her man and found him sitting on the bank of the stream with his back against a poplar tree, and his feet close to the water. He did not hear her footsteps, and she stood still a moment, looking at him.
He appeared to be watching the water, yet she imagined that he did not see it, that he was not aware of its movement. He looked infinitely sad. She had a curious impression of him as having been removed to a great distance from her; and yet never had he seemed so near.
“Chéri,” she said softly, guessing that the panic moment had come, and that her man was awake.
Paul turned his head very slowly, as though it was not easy for him to meet her eyes.
“Hallo! Come and sit down.”
She sat down close to him.
“Well, you will tell me,” she said, “of what you are thinking?”
He hesitated, his hands resting rather helplessly on his knees.
“I was thinking what a mess I had made of things.”
She had known that this awakening must come; this pain of the conscience. She had foreseen it, and she was prepared; she was there at his side.