There was a sad, a deadly charm still about the journey. There was a bitter and a sweet comfort yet before her. There were two hours of farewell to be said at dawn. There was the sight of his face once more for her. That the man who slipped into the seat beside her at Chantilly was Julien dissolved her courage and set her heart beating. She glanced at him in that early light, and he at her. Two hours before them still.
She was to carry him with her only to lose him surely; he was to accompany her on her journey only to turn back.
All the way to Amiens he reassured himself and her: "In a week I will come to Charleville."
And she replied: "Yes, this is nothing. I lose you here, but in a week you will come."
"How will you find me at Charleville? Will you come to the garage?"
"No, I shall write to the 'Silver Lion.' You will find in the middle of the main street an old inn with mouldering black wood upon the window sashes. How well I know it! I will write there."
"We are so near the end," she said suddenly, "that to have said 'Good-bye' to you, to leave you at Amiens, is no worse than this."
And faster she hurried towards Amiens to find relief. He did not contradict her, or bid her go slower, but as they neared Amiens, offered once more his promise that they would meet again in a week.
"It isn't that," she said. "I know we shall meet again. It isn't that I fear never to see you again. It is the closing of a chapter."
They drove into Amiens in the streaming daylight.
"I am sending you to my home," he said. "Every inch of the country is mine. You go to a town that I know, villages that I know, roads that I have walked and ridden and driven upon. You go to my country. I like to think of that."
"I shall go at once to see your house in Revins."
"Yes--oh, you will see it easily--on the banks of the Meuse. I was born there. In a week, in a few days, in a short time--I will come, too."
She stopped the car in a side street of the town.
Lifting her hands she said: "They want to hold you back." Then placed them back on the wheel. "They can't," she said, and shook her head.
He took his bag in his hand, and stood by the car, looking at her.
"You take the three o'clock train back to Paris when the papers are through," she said hurriedly with sudden nervousness. And then: "Oh, we've said everything! Oh, let's get it over--"