How warm it had been when they sat in that nook, chatting for many a long evening! She had always come that way, and the pressure of her foot, as she alighted from the wall, had worn away the stone's surface in one corner.

The mark seemed instinct with something of her lissom figure.

And to Silvere it appeared as if some fatalism attached to all these objects--as if the stone were there precisely in order that he might come to die beside it, there where he had loved.
The one-eyed man cocked his pistols.
Death! death! the thought fascinated Silvere.

It was to this spot, then, that they had led him, by the long white road which descends from Sainte-Roure to Plassans.

If he had known it, he would have hastened on yet more quickly in order to die on that stone, at the end of the narrow path, in the atmosphere where he could still detect the scent of Miette's breath! Never had he hoped for such consolation in his grief.
Heaven was merciful.