And, in spite of himself, he smiled his evil smile, the smile with which he had greeted other analogous confidences made by other lips, and this smile had always been sufficient to prevent the women who had drawn it upon themselves from returning to the subject. They have such facility in changing a falsehood! But Helen, who did not speak falsely, could endure neither the smile nor the look which accompanied it. Was it not in order that she might never see them again that she had given herself to her lover? It was the first time since then that she had encountered the distrust which caused her so much pain at the beginning of her connection with Armand, and loyal as she was, brave and straightforward, she persisted: "You do not believe me capable of belonging to two men at the same time? Say no, my dear love; say that you have not such an opinion of me. From the day on which I became your mistress, I ceased to be Alfred's wife." "I am not jealous," said the young man; "I know that you love me." "Say that you are not jealous, because you are sure that I am only yours." "If you wish it, I will say so," he replied, rendered somewhat impatient by her persistence, and being especially but little anxious about the prospects of paternity, flight, and drama which Helen's sudden words had just opened up before him; and such irony was impressed upon his words that the unhappy woman became silent. "He does not believe me," she thought; "he does not believe me!" On returning home that evening, Helen felt sad, even to death. She withdrew to her own room, and, under pretence of a headache, went to bed instead of coming down to dinner. She wept much. She could see dimly through her grief what a difference there existed between Armand's love and her own. "Ah!" she said to herself, "of what has he judged me capable? He does not love me." And, seized again by the terrible dread from which she had suffered on the very evening of the day when she had given herself to him, she said again to herself: "He is right. What I am doing is so wicked. But he ought to understand that it is for his sake, and so excuse me." And she pressed her forehead upon her pillows, falling suddenly, as very impassioned souls do, from extreme felicity into extreme anguish. This first perception was a very keen one, but it did not last. Upon reflection, Helen compared her grief with the reason which had provoked it. The sight of the disproportion between cause and effect sufficed to calm her, the more so that Armand's eyes, when they met again, expressed that ardour of desire in the fire of which her heart ever expanded. The young man had quite understood the pain caused to his mistress by his doubt, and had said to himself: "Why torment her? She lies to me in order to please me the more, and I am angry with her for the lie. 'Tis too unjust!"