The image of the fatal beauty was there without truce, present in his burning brain, before his dazzled eyes; he inhaled with avidity and in spite of himself, its languor, its perfume, its breath.
The sound of light footsteps upon the sand caused him to suspend his march.

He caught through the darkness a glimpse of a white form approaching him.
It was she! Without giving scarce a thought to the act, he threw himself behind the obscure angle formed by one of those massive pillars that supported the ruins against the side of the hill.

A mass of verdure made the darkness there more dense still.

She went by, her eyes fixed upon the ground, with her supple and rhythmical step.

She walked as far as the little pond that received the waters of the brook, stood dreaming for a few moments upon its edge, and then returned.