Her brave and honest nature could have endured any humiliation far better than the continual lie she was forced to live. But she had promised; Maurice was her husband, and reason told her that for his sake she must preserve not her honor, alas! but the semblance of honor. And when she thought of her brother, her blood froze in her veins. Having learned that Jean was roving about the country, she sent for him; but it was not without much persuasion that he consented to come to the Borderie. It was easy to explain Chupin’s terror when one saw Jean Lacheneur. His clothing was literally in tatters, his face wore an expression of ferocious despair, and a fierce unextinguishable hatred burned in his eyes. When he entered the cottage, Marie-Anne recoiled in horror. She did not recognize him until he spoke. “It is I, sister,” he said, gloomily. “You--my poor Jean! you!” He surveyed himself from head to foot, and said, with a sneering laugh: “Really, I should not like to meet myself at dusk in the forest.” Marie-Anne shuddered. She fancied that a threat lurked beneath these ironical words, beneath this mockery of himself. “What a life yours must be, my poor brother! Why did you not come sooner? Now, I have you here, I shall not let you go. You will not desert me. I need protection and love so much. You will remain with me?” “It is impossible, Marie-Anne.” “And why?” A fleeting crimson suffused Jean Lacheneur’s cheek; he hesitated for a moment, then: “Because I have a right to dispose of my own life, but not of yours,” he replied. “We can no longer be anything to each other. I deny you to-day, that you may be able to deny me to-morrow. Yes, I renounce you, who are my all--the only person on earth whom I love. Your most cruel enemies have not calumniated you more foully than I----” He paused an instant, then he added: “I have said openly, before numerous witnesses, that I would never set foot in a house that had been given you by Chanlouineau.” “Jean! you, my brother! said that?” “I said it. It must be supposed that there is a deadly feud between us. This must be, in order that neither you nor Maurice d’Escorval can be accused of complicity in any deed of mine.” Marie-Anne stood as if petrified. “He is mad!” she murmured. “Do I really have that appearance?” She shook off the stupor that paralyzed her, and seizing her brother’s hands: “What do you intend to do?” she exclaimed. “What do you intend to do? Tell me; I will know.” “Nothing! let me alone.” “Jean!” “Let me alone,” he said, roughly, disengaging himself. A horrible presentiment crossed Marie-Anne’s mind. She stepped back, and solemnly, entreatingly, she said: “Take care, take care, my brother. It is not well to tamper with these matters. Leave to God’s justice the task of punishing those who have wronged us.”