Jeanne was still weeping silently at Madame Desvarennes’s knee. The latter raised her head gently and wiped away the tears with her lace pocket-handkerchief. “Come, my child! all this deluge means nothing. You must make up your mind. I can understand your hiding anything from your husband, but not from me! What is your lover’s name?” This question so simply put, threw a faint light on Jeanne’s troubled brain. She saw the danger she was running. To speak before Madame Desvarennes! To tell the name of him who had been false to her! To her! Was it possible? In a moment she understood that she was about to destroy Micheline and Serge. Her conscience revolted and she would not. She raised herself and looking at Madame Desvarennes with still frightened eyes, “For pity’s sake, forget my tears! Don’t believe what my husband has told you. Never seek to know. Remain ignorant as you are on the subject!” “Then he whom you love is related to me, as: you wish to hide his name even from me,” said Madame Desvarennes with instinctive anguish. She was silent. Her eyes became fixed. They looked without seeing. She was thinking. “I beseech you,” cried Jeanne, madly placing her hands before Madame Desvarennes’s face as if to check her scrutiny. “If I had a son,” continued the mistress, “I would believe--” Suddenly she ceased speaking; she became pale, and bending toward Jeanne, she looked into her very soul. “Is it--” she began. “No! no!” interrupted Jeanne, terrified at seeing that the mistress had found out the truth. “You deny it before I have pronounced the name?” said Madame Desvarennes in a loud voice. “You read it then on my lips? Unhappy girl! The man whom you love is the husband of my daughter!” My daughter! The accent with which Madame Desvarennes pronounced the word “my” was full of tragical power. It revealed the mother capable of doing anything to defend the happiness of the child whom she adored. Serge had calculated well. Between Jeanne and Micheline, Madame Desvarennes would not hesitate. She would have allowed the world to crumble away to make of its ruins a shelter where her daughter would be joyous and happy. Jeanne had fallen back overwhelmed. The mistress raised her roughly. She had no more consideration for her. It was necessary that she should speak. Jeanne was the sole witness, and if the truth had to be got by main force she should be made to speak it. “Ah, forgive me!” moaned the young girl. “It is not a question of that! In one word, answer me: Does he love you?” “Do I know?” “Did he tell you he did?” “Yes.” “And he has married Micheline!” exclaimed Madame Desvarennes, with a fearful gesture. “I distrusted him. Why did I not obey my instinct?” And she began walking about like a lioness in a cage. Then, suddenly stopping and placing herself before Jeanne, she continued: “You must help me to save Micheline!”