"Luce! you will not let me leave this life before . . . ?"
"Oh, God," said Luce, squeezing his arm, "that thought would be worse than death!"
"My love, my love!" they kept repeating, one to the other.
Once more they came to a stop.
"When shall I be yours?" said Pierre.
(He could not have dared to ask: "When shall you be mine?")
Luce noticed this and was touched by it.
"Adored one," she said to him, ". . . very soon! Let's not hurry. You can not desire it more than I wish it! . . . Let us stay this way a little while. . . . It is splendid! . . . This month longer, right to the end! . . ."
"Until Easter?" he murmured.
(This year Easter was the last day in March.)
"Yes, at the Resurrection."
"Ah," quoth he, "there's the Death before Resurrection."
"Hush!" she interposed, closing his mouth with her own.
