He and Raymonde remained behind the others.

They had begun talking together in low tones, with an air of smiling intimacy, lost and isolated as they were in the dense crowd.

And Madame Desagneaux at last had to stop, look back, and call to them: "Come on, or we shall lose one another!" As they drew near, Pierre heard the girl exclaim: "Mamma is so very busy; speak to her before we leave." And Gerard thereupon replied: "It is understood.

You have made me very happy, mademoiselle." Thus the husband had been secured, the marriage decided upon, during this charming promenade among the sights of Lourdes.

Raymonde had completed her conquest, and Gerard had at last taken a resolution, realising how gay and sensible she was, as she walked beside him leaning on his arm.
M.de Guersaint, however, had raised his eyes, and was heard inquiring: "Are not those people up there, on that balcony, the rich folk who made the journey in the same train as ourselves ?--You know whom I mean, that lady who is so very ill, and whose husband and sister accompany her ?" He was alluding to the Dieulafays; and they indeed were the persons whom he now saw on the balcony of a suite of rooms which they had rented in a new house overlooking the lawns of the Rosary.