The sinister event that had brought them together, threw a sort of dismal dejection upon them.
When they at length arrived at the restaurant beside the river, they found Therese in bed with burning head and hands.

The landlord told them in an undertone, that the young woman had a violent fever.

The truth was that Therese, feeling herself weak in character and wanting in courage, feared she might confess the crime in one of her nervous attacks, and had decided to feign illness.
Maintaining sullen silence, she kept her lips and eyes closed, unwilling to see anyone lest she should speak.

With the bedclothes to her chin, her face half concealed by the pillow, she made herself quite small, anxiously listening to all that was said around her.

And, amidst the reddish gleam that passed beneath her closed lids, she could still see Camille and Laurent struggling at the side of the boat.