"I have not deserted you: you went away and you have taken our children. Do you think I did not love them as much as you? If I did not ask to take care of them, at least for a part of the year, it is only on your account, so as not to increase your loneliness and it is because my mother begged me to leave them to you. Did you not know about it? Did you not guess it? You thought that I had no interest in them? In refusing my support you gave me back my rights. Now I am free, now I mean to see them again, to share them." He had grown more and more excited, rambling on because of the disorder of his heart and his brain. "Marie Louise, Philippe!" called Elizabeth terrified. The two children hurried to her; Marie Louise had already cried from afar: "Naughty papa!" The young wife pressed them both to her. "For more than two years they have been mine--mine only. Dare to take them from me! I will not share them." He stopped short, like a horse whose spirit is broken and whose gallop is suddenly brought to a standstill. "I am unjust, Elizabeth!" He spoke her name for the first time. In spite of her fear, she thrilled. He fell into an armchair beside a table on which he was leaning. His anger spent itself. "Marie Louise is right. Nobody ever wished to give more happiness than I, and I spread suffering everywhere. It is a fatality. At least I am not happy. What shall I do? How should I know it? Elizabeth, it would be better that you should leave me, forget me, start your life anew." She pushed the children towards him, but they obeyed her unwillingly. This confession of weakness was touching on the part of a man who had always extolled the importance of will power, the spirit of continuity and energy in both general and individual life. She felt it and wanted to hold out her arms to him; a secret instinct warned her not to show her tenderness yet. "Oh," she murmured simply, "I am not one of those who begin life anew." She had begun it over again, however, but in the same straight path. He pulled himself together with an effort to pay her homage. "Yes, you have already; alone, you helped my mother; you have brought up our children alone. And I, I can do nothing for you but pity you." This word separated them still farther. "It is not your pity that I came to seek. Your mother formerly wished to take this journey. So I have done it." Their good-bys were distressing. He kissed his children twice. Then he wished to offer his hand to Elizabeth, who had let hers fall down at her sides. "Later" ... said he, "some day ... but it will be too late. Your patience has limits." She thought: "Love has none," and said nothing, since he hesitated about her and his heart was elsewhere. Albert's last word was an "Au Revoir" which escaped him, and which she noticed. How long would she have to continue greater and greater self-sacrifice, and how long would she be kept on the brink of despair? He had come in the morning, and in the evening she left.