And then begins the mischief. The boy is smitten by a dangerous illness. The third act discovers Marianne almost crazed by grief at the home of her former husband. She has nursed the child in company with his father. She only leaves the bedside when the doctor pronounces his patient out of danger. The woman collapses. Max finds her weak, her nerves shattered by the strain. He has touched her hand across the body of their dying child, but not her heart. He makes an impassioned appeal, but is repulsed. She loves her new husband, she says, and has written him at least once every day. The mother of Max also tells the harassed woman of the love she has aroused in her son--a love purified by deep sorrow. At last Marianne retires to the apartment in which she slept the night when Max de Pogis brought her to his château. Max enters. It is a scene that even when read touches the heart. The man is in earnest. He is humble. He tells of his love--a love compared to which the second husband's is nothing. He plays the old variations with a woman's heart--a maternal heart--as the instrument. This music proves dangerous. It sets reverberating familiar chords. The hour is midnight. The father of her son looks into her eyes and points to the mementos of their early love. He clasps her to his breast, and the curtain falls on the subjugation of the woman. The ghost of the past has made her forget the present. Do not be in haste to condemn her weakness. The dramatist is pitiless enough in his judgment. She goes to her parents', not her husband's home, and half mad with remorse tells--without any attempt to sentimentally varnish her guilt--her mother everything. That lady is not surprised, shocked as she may be. Max, after all, is the husband of Marianne in the sight of God, let legislators decree what they may. It is the triumph of the mother, the triumph of the species Jules Gaultier would call it. The father is told, and he grieves mightily. And Le Breuil, the new husband, what of him! Shuddering, Marianne declares that henceforth for her he no longer exists. She has descended lower than the lowest, but there remains a still deeper gulf of vileness, and into it she will not fall. Le Breuil clamours for admittance. He must know why his wife has not gone to her house. She will not see him. He, the gentle Guillaume, becomes quarrelsome. Then she resolves to meet him. This interview is another masterpiece of observation and dramatic values. He begs for an explanation--he suspects that her nerves have been upset by her visit and by the illness of her son, though he is too tender and chivalric to cast this in her teeth. He is angelic in his behaviour, but to no avail. Some subtle chemistry has transformed the nature of Marianne. She respects, she pities her husband--live with him she cannot. Aroused by her obduracy, Guillaume rushes at her to kiss her. In a blinding flash she sees herself further dishonoured--