Something seemed to snap in his head, and that wish, that idea kept back during all those hours, darted into his brain with the heat and noise of a conflagration.

He must see her! See her at once! Go now! To-night! He had the raging regret of the lost hour, of every passing moment.

There was no thought of resistance now.

Yet with the instinctive fear of the irrevocable, with the innate falseness of the human heart, he wanted to keep open the way of retreat.

He had never absented himself during the night.