midnight
A phase of their life finished with that day : a lapse of time had occurred , their childhood had passed -- Of recommendations , they had none very long to exchange , so intensely was each one sure of what the other might do during the separation . They had less to say to each other than other engaged people have , because they knew mutually their most intimate thoughts . After the first hour of conversation , they remained hand in hand in grave silence , while were consumed the inexorable minutes of the end . At midnight , she wished him to go , as she had decided in advance , in her little thoughtful and obstinate head . Therefore , after having embraced each other for a long time , they quitted each other , as if the separation were , at this precise minute , an ineluctable thing which it was impossible to retard . And while she returned to her room with sobs that he heard , he scaled over the wall and , in coming out of the darkness of the foliage , found himself on the deserted road , white with lunar rays . At this first separation , he suffered less than she , because he was going , because it was he that the morrow , full of uncertainty , awaited .