Thanks--ah! thanks. I hesitated a long time before warning you--hesitated even this morning, but I heard the midwife talking with the nurse and learned that to-morrow perhaps it might be too late, so I sent Doctor Pellerin to call you immediately. JEAN Why didn't you call me sooner? MUSOTTE I never thought that my illness would become so serious. I did not wish to trouble your life. JEAN [_points to the cradle_] But that child! How is it that I was not told of this sooner? MUSOTTE You would never have known it, if his birth had not killed me. I would have spared you this pain--this cloud upon your life. When you left me, you gave me enough to live upon. Everything was over between us; and besides, at any other moment than this, would you believe me if I said to you: “This is your child?” JEAN Yes, I have never doubted you. MUSOTTE You are as good as ever, my Jean. No, no, I am not lying to you; he is yours, that little one there. I swear it to you on my deathbed; I swear it to you before God! JEAN I have already told you that I believed you. I have always believed you. MUSOTTE Listen, this is all that has happened. As soon as you left me, I became very ill. I suffered so much that I thought I was going to die. The doctor ordered a change of air. You remember, it was in the spring. I went to Saint-Malo--to that old relative, of whom I have often talked to you. JEAN Yes, yes. MUSOTTE It was in Saint-Malo, after some days, that I realized that you had left me a pledge of your affection. My first desire was to tell you everything, for I knew that you were an honest man--that you would have recognized this child, perhaps even have given up your marriage; but I would not have had you do that. All was over; was it not?--and it was better that it should be so. I knew that I could never be your wife [_smiles_], Musotte, me, Madame Martinel--oh, no! JEAN My poor, dear girl. How brutal and hard we men are, without thinking of it and without wishing to be so! MUSOTTE Don't say that. I was not made for you. I was only a little model; and you, you were a rising artist, and I never thought that you would belong to me forever. [Jean _sheds tears_.] No, no, don't cry; you have nothing to reproach yourself with. You have always been so good to me. It is only God who has been cruel to me. JEAN Musotte! MUSOTTE