“I said, ‘Restrain yourself, my love, you will awaken your mother!’ but my tears fell as fast as her own. The next day my wife learned all; she did not reproach me. ‘I knew,’ she said, ‘from the beginning that there was some misfortune in this marriage.’ And, in fact, she had certain presentiments of evil from the hour that the man came under our roof. What is the diagnosis of a physician compared to the warning and confidences whispered by destiny into the ear of certain women? In the neighborhood the arrival of my child was quickly known. ‘Your travellers have returned,’ they said. They asked few questions, for they readily saw that I was unhappy. They noticed that the count was not with us, that Madeleine and her mother never went out; and very soon I found myself met with compassionate glances that were harder to bear than anything else. My daughter had not confided to me that a child would be born from this disastrous union, but sat sewing day after day, ornamenting the dainty garments, which are the joy and pride of mothers, with ribbons and lace; I fancied, however, that she looked at them with feelings of shame, for the least allusion to the man who had deceived her made her turn pale. But my wife, who saw things with clearer vision than my own, said, ‘You are mistaken: she loves him still.’ “Yes, she loved, and strong as was her contempt and distrust, her love was stronger still. It was this that killed her, for she died soon after Cécile’s birth. We found under her pillow a letter, worn in all its folds, the only one she had ever received from Nadine, written before their marriage. She had read it often, but she died without once pronouncing the name that I am sure trembled all the time on her lips. “You are astonished that in a tranquil village like this a complicated drama could have been enacted, such as would seem possible only in the crowded cities of London and Paris. When fate thus attacks, by chance as it were, a little corner so sheltered by hedges and trees, I am reminded of those spent balls which during a battle kill a laborer at work in the fields, or a child returning from school. I think if we had not had little Cécile, my wife would have died with her daughter. Her life from that hour was one long silence, full of regrets and self-reproach.