ge, a sign or something. I pulled out all the drawers
violently, thinking that perhaps she had hidden there a scrap of paper, a
note. It was perfectly mad. Of course there was no chance of that.
Therese would have seen to it. I picked up one after another all the
various objects on the dressing-table. On laying my hands on the brushes
I had a profound emotion, and with misty eyes I examined them
meticulously with the new hope of finding one of Rita's tawny hairs
entangled amongst the bristles by a miraculous chance. But Therese would
have done away with that chance, too. There was nothing to be seen,
though I held them up to the light with a beating heart. It was written
that not even that trace of her passage on the earth should remain with
me; not to help but, as it were, to soothe the memory. Then I lighted a
cigarette and came downstairs slowly. My unhappiness became dulled, as
the grief of those who mourn for the dead gets dulled in the overwhelming
sensation that everything is over, that a part of themselves is lost
beyond recall taking with it all the savour of life.

I discovered Therese still on the very same spot of the floor, her hands
folded over each other and facing my empty chair before which the spilled
wine had soaked a large portion of the table-cloth. She hadn't moved at
all. She hadn't even picked up the overturned glass. But directly I
appeared she began to speak in an ingratiating voice.

"If you have missed anything of yours upstairs, my dear young Monsieur,
you mustn't say it's me. You don't know what our Rita is."

"I wish to goodness," I said, "that she had taken something."

And again I became inordinately agitated as though it were my absolute
fate to be everlastingly dying and reviving to the tormenting fact of her
existence. Perhaps she had taken something? Anything. Some small
object. I thought suddenly of a Rhenish-stone match-box. Perhaps it was
that. I didn't remember having seen it when upstairs. I wanted to make
sure at once. At once. But I commanded myself to sit still.

"And she so wealthy," Therese went on. "Even you with your dear generous
little heart can do nothing for our Rita. No man can do anything for
her--except perhaps one, but she is so evilly disposed towards him that
she wouldn't even see him, if in the goodness of his forgiving heart he
were to offer his hand to her. It's her bad conscience that frightens
her. He loves her more than his li