Why had she then rebelled against such just words? Albert had trampled on her heart all that night--had she ever loved him as she did at that hour when she was opening her eyes wide to the obscurity of life? The morning when he had first whispered in her ear the words that every young girl expects and which do not surprise her, the afternoon when her fiancé had shyly touched her cheek with his lips at St. Martin d'Uriage, the evening she became a wife without even understanding how to make of her suffering an offering of love, none of these experiences had brought her memories, comparable in depth of feeling to this distress which was crushing her. Did she have to lose her happiness to know its value?--And she had even lost it without understanding it. That her humiliation might be complete, she had to learn it from another love which was passed over her, like an infectious illness, devouring her with its fire. The increasing coolness of those last hours of night did not calm her fever. The wind grew cooler, as it touched her face--She clung to the window sash with all her strength to support herself. So many and such overwhelming thoughts crushed her at the same time. Murmurs, then short stifled sobs from the children's room, made her start, listen, but she did not move from her place. Contrary to her habits, she did not go to the door, but let Marie Louise, whose voice she had distinguished, fight alone against her nightmare. She shut herself up savagely in her despair, and the last sentence of Albert's diary, so cruel in its selfishness, became intelligible to her. The little girl had gone to sleep again when she felt able to go to her. "The cup ... of happiness" she thought in recalling the last words the child had said. She had held it in her hands--the divine cup--She had received it as a treasure which was her due, and scarcely noticing it, she had quaffed it unconcernedly, and had then allowed it to be taken from her. How had she been unable to suspect what life could hold for her? She no longer defended herself against Albert's accusations. To defend herself meant to increase the influence of the rival. She preferred to be the guilty one. Yes, in her home, one breathed the odor of death, and not the fascination of life. Instead of a warm light on entering, one met darkness--cold. "Why," she beseeched in condemning her past, "why was I not warned? I was so young, so simple and ignorant. Would I not have molded myself? Young girls do not know. No one tells them that everyone has to make his own home and watch his fire. They collect stones by chance, and the first breath of wind disperses their ashes. It is wicked not to help them."