movement. Laurent thought she was asleep.

He rose to his feet and stood with his back to a tree. Then he perceived
that the young woman was gazing into space with her great, sparkling
eyes wide open. Her face, lying between her arms, with her hands clasped
above her head, was deadly pale, and wore an expression of frigid
rigidity. Therese was musing. Her fixed eyes resembled dark,
unfathomable depths, where naught was visible save night. She did not
move, she did not cast a glance at Laurent, who stood erect behind her.

Her sweetheart contemplated her, and was almost affrighted to see her
so motionless and mute. He would have liked to have bent forward, and
closed those great open eyes with a kiss. But Camille lay asleep
close at hand. This poor creature, with his body twisted out of shape,
displaying his lean proportions, was gently snoring. Under the hat,
half concealing his face, could be seen his mouth contorted into a silly
grimace in his slumber. A few short reddish hairs on a bony chin sullied
his livid skin, and his head being thrown backward, his thin wrinkled
neck appeared, with Adam's apple standing out prominently in brick red
in the centre, and rising at each snore. Camille, spread out on the
ground in this fashion, looked contemptible and vile.

Laurent who looked at him, abruptly raised his heel. He was going to
crush his face at one blow.

Therese restrained a cry. She went a shade paler than before, closed
her eyes and turned her head away as if to avoid being bespattered with
blood.

Laurent, for a few seconds, remained with his heel in the air, above the
face of the slumbering Camille. Then slowly, straightening his leg, he
moved a few paces away. He reflected that this would be a form of murder
such as an idiot would choose. This pounded head would have set all the
police on him. If he wanted to get rid of Camille, it was solely for the
purpose of marrying Therese. It was his intention to bask in the sun,
after the crime, like the murderer of the wagoner, in the story related
by old Michaud.

He went as far as the edge of the water, and watched the running river
in a stupid manner. Then, he abruptly turned into the underwood again.
He had just arranged a plan. He had thought of a mode of murder that
would be convenient, and without danger to himself.

He awoke the sleeper by tickling his nose with a straw. Camille sneezed,
got up, and pronounced the joke a capital one. He liked Laurent on