The lover laid his head heavily on the shoulder of his friend, his lips touched the heaving bosom, his hair flowed over the white shoulders and caressed her throat.

The girl, ingenuously loving, bent her head aside to give more place for his head, passing her arm about his neck to gain support.

Thus they remained till nightfall without uttering a word.

The crickets sang in their holes, and the lovers listened to that music as if to employ their senses on one sense only.

Certainly they could only in that hour be compared to angels who, with their feet on earth, await the moment to take flight to heaven.
They had fulfilled the noble dream of Plato's mystic genius, the dream of all who seek a meaning in humanity; they formed but one soul, they were, indeed, that mysterious Pearl destined to adorn the brow of a star as yet unknown, but the hope of all! "Will you take me home ?" said Gabrielle, the first to break the exquisite silence.
"Why should we part ?" replied Etienne.
"We ought to be together always," she said.
"Stay with me." "Yes." The heavy step of Beauvouloir sounded in the adjoining room.