She let him do as he liked, without offering any resistance, but when, at last, he set her free, she said, in a tender, plaintive tone:
"Oh! how wrong it was of you to have done that, how wrong of you!" And then she hid her face in her hands, and he could hear that she was crying.
He tried to console her, but she would not allow him to stay.
"No, go away, please," she said: "they will be wondering where you are. I shall come in directly, when I am myself again."
As he was starting off in the direction of the terrace, she called him back.
"Not that way," she said. "Go round by the pool. Don't let them think you have come from here."
"Let me stay another minute, just to ask you to forgive me. Let me kiss those little hands that I love--"
"Please go! Please go!" she said, in a tone that sounded as though she mistrusted herself.
Before turning into the walk that led round by the pool, Giraud stopped a minute to get another glimpse of Denyse, who, in her light dress, looked like a white spot against the dark background of the trees. He could hear that she was still crying.
"Is that you, Bijou?" asked Jean de Blaye, coming forward in the thick darkness.
"Who is it?" asked the young girl, drawing herself up.
"It is I--Jean! Why, do you mean to say that you won't even do me the honour of recognising my voice. What are you doing out here in this pitch darkness?"
"I came out to join the Dubuissons, but I thought afterwards that it was better not to disturb them, and so I came here all alone."
"It must be quite a change for you to be alone, isn't it? And what in the world do you do when you are all by yourself?"
"Well, I dream dreams, if you like that better?"
"Well I never! That's what I never should have thought you would do. They are surely not in the least like ordinary dreams--yours?"
"Because dreams are usually incoherent, strange and quite improbable."
"Well, your dreams must be admirably sensible and reasonable; they must resemble you."
"Well, for the pleasant things you are saying."
"Oh! they are not exactly pleasant things; they are true, though. Besides, I have not come here just to say pleasant things to you, but to talk to you seriously."
"Yes! I have undertaken a mission for some one else. I have promised to speak to you to the best of my ability in the name of some one who did not care to speak for himself."