Paris was not receiving the soldiers wounded in battle; by order of the Government, they were being sent from the front to the hospitals in the South.
She no longer evinced toward Julio the resistance of the first few days.
Her training as a nurse was giving her a certain passivity.

She seemed to be ignoring material attractions, stripping them of the spiritual importance which she had hitherto attributed to them.

She wanted to make Julio happy, although her mind was concentrated on other matters.
One afternoon, she felt the necessity of communicating certain news which had been filling her mind since the day before.

Springing up from the couch, she hunted for her handbag which contained a letter.

She wanted to read it again to tell its contents to somebody with that irresistible impulse which forestalls confession.
It was a letter which her brother had sent her from the Vosges.