She did not wish to be separated from him whom she loved. Hence the struggle that had ended in her abandoning her hand to Cayrol, perhaps in a moment of despair and discouragement. But why had he whom she loved not married her? What obstacle had arisen between him and the young girl? Jeanne, so beautiful, and dowered by Madame Desvarennes, who then could have hesitated to ask her hand? Perhaps he whom Jeanne loved was unworthy of her? No! She would not have chosen him. Perhaps he was not free to marry? Yes, it must be that. Some married man, perhaps! A scoundrel who did not mind breaking a young girl's heart! Where had she met him? In society at her house in the Rue Saint-Dominique, perhaps! Who could tell? He very likely still continued to come there. At the thought Madame Desvarennes grew angry. She wished to know the name of the man so that she might have an explanation with him, and tell him what she thought of his base conduct. The gentleman should have respectable, well-educated girls to trifle with, should he? And he risked nothing! He should be shown to the door with all honors due to his shameful conduct. 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!"