It deepened the flush which exertion had
brought to the woman's cheek, then left it paler than before. A minute
earlier she had been wroth with her old lover; she had held him
accountable for the outbreak in the town and this hasty retreat; now her
anger died as she looked and she remembered. In the man, shallower of
feeling and more alive to present contingencies, the uppermost emotion as
he trod the bridge was one of surprise and congratulation.
He could not at first believe in their good fortune. "_Mon Dieu_!" he
cried, "we are crossing!" And then again in a lower tone, "We are
crossing! We are crossing!" And he looked at her.
It was impossible that she should not look back; that she who had ceased
to be angry should not feel and remember; impossible that her answering
glance should not speak to his heart. Below them, as on that day a month
earlier, when they had crossed the bridges going northward, the broad
shallow river ran its course in the sunshine, its turbid currents
gleaming and flashing about the sandbanks and osier-beds. To the eye,
the landscape, save that the vintage was farther advanced and the harvest
in part gathered in, was the same. But how changed were their relations,
their prospects, their hopes, who had then crossed the river
hand-in-hand, planning a life to be passed together.
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