It is going to rain," said Emma.
"I have a cloak," he answered.
"Ah!"
She turned around, her chin lowered, her forehead bent forward.
The light fell on it as on a piece of marble, to the curve of the eyebrows, without one's being able to guess what Emma was seeing on the horizon or what she was thinking within herself.
"Well, good bye," he sighed.
She raised her head with a quick movement.
"Yes, good bye go!"
They advanced towards each other; he held out his hand; she hesitated.
"In the English fashion, then," she said, giving her own hand wholly to him, and forcing a laugh.
Leon felt it between his fingers, and the very essence of all his being seemed to pass down into that moist palm. Then he opened his hand; their eyes met again, and he disappeared.
When he reached the market place, he stopped and hid behind a pillar to look for the last time at this white house with the four green blinds. He thought he saw a shadow behind the window in the room; but the curtain, sliding along the pole as though no one were touching it, slowly opened its long oblique folds that spread out with a single movement, and thus hung straight and motionless as a plaster wall. Leon set off running.
From afar he saw his employer's gig in the road, and by it a man in a coarse apron holding the horse. Homais and Monsieur Guillaumin were talking. They were waiting for him.
"Embrace me," said the druggist with tears in his eyes. "Here is your coat, my good friend. Mind the cold; take care of yourself; look after yourself."
"Come, Leon, jump in," said the notary.
Homais bent over the splash board, and in a voice broken by sobs uttered these three sad words
"A pleasant journey!"
"Good night," said Monsieur Guillaumin. "Give him his head." They set out, and Homais went back.
