took hold of Pierre's hands; he and she were so lost, so
completely alone among all those prostrated beings, in the deep, rumbling
peacefulness of the train flying across the black night. And sadness, the
sadness which she had hitherto hidden, had again come back to her,
casting a shadow over her large blue eyes.

"You will often come with us, my good Pierre, won't you?" she asked.

He had started on feeling her little hand pressing his own. His heart was
on his lips, he was making up his mind to speak. However, he once again
restrained himself and stammered: "I am not always at liberty, Marie; a
priest cannot go everywhere."

"A priest?" she repeated. "Yes, yes, a priest. I understand."

Then it was she who spoke, who confessed the mortal secret which had been
oppressing her heart ever since they had started. She leant nearer, and
in a lower voice resumed: "Listen, my good Pierre; I am fearfully sad. I
may look pleased, but there is death in my soul. You did not tell me the
truth yesterday."

He became quite scared, but did not at first understand her. "I did not
tell you the truth--About what?" he asked.

A kind of shame restrained her, and she again hesitated at the moment of
descending into the depths of another conscience than her own. Then, like
a friend, a sister, she continued: "No, you let me believe that you had
been saved with me, and it was not true, Pierre, you have not found your
lost faith again."

Good Lord! she knew. For him this was desolation, such a catastrophe that
he forgot his torments. And, at first, he obstinately clung to the
falsehood born of his fraternal charity. "But I assure you, Marie. How
can you have formed such a wicked idea?"

"Oh! be quiet, my friend, for pity's sake. It would grieve me too deeply
if you were to speak to me falsely again. It was yonder, at the station,
at the moment when we were starting, and that unhappy man had died. Good
Abbe Judaine had knelt down to pray for the repose of that rebellious
soul. And I divined everything, I understood everything when I saw that
you did not kneel as well, that prayer did not rise to your lips as to
his."

"But, really, I assure you, Marie--"

"No, no, you did not pray for the dead; you no longer believe. And
besides, there is something else; something I can guess, something which
comes to me from you, a despair which you can't hide from me, a
melancholy look which comes into your poor eyes directly they meet mine.
The B