For a moment Pierre
had turned towards Marie and had noticed that her eyes were closed. But
he could divine that she was not sleeping, that she was savouring the
deep peacefulness which prevailed around them amidst the thundering roar
of their rush through the darkness, and, like her, he closed his eyelids
and began dreaming.
Yet once again did the past arise before him: the little house at
Neuilly, the embrace which they had exchanged near the flowering hedge
under the trees flecked with sunlight. How far away all that already was,
and with what perfume had it not filled his life! Then bitter thoughts
returned to him at the memory of the day when he had become a priest.
Since she would never be a woman, he had consented to be a man no more;
and that was to prove their eternal misfortune, for ironical Nature was
to make her a wife and a mother after all. Had he only been able to
retain his faith he might have found eternal consolation in it. But all
his attempts to regain it had been in vain. He had gone to Lourdes, he
had striven his utmost at the Grotto, he had hoped for a moment that he
would end by believing should Marie be miraculously healed; but total and
irremediable ruin had come when the predicted cure had taken place even
as science had foretold.
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