"What! do you want to leave me?" cried Madame de Villemer, alarmed at a conclusion which she did not expect so suddenly, although she had secretly desired it. "No, no, that is impossible! It would ruin everything. My son loves you with an earnestness,--whose future consequences I do not fear, if you will help me to contend against them, but whose violence at the first moment I do fear. Stop! He would follow you, perhaps; he is eloquent, he would triumph over your resistance, he would bring you back, and I should be forced to tell him--what I never want to tell him." "You will never have to say 'No' to him!" replied Caroline, still under a delusion, and nowise suspecting this menace of her pretended misconduct hanging over her head; "it is I who should tell him, is it not? Well then I will write to him, and my letter shall pass through your hands." "But his grief--his anger, perhaps--have you thought of that?" "Madame, let me go away!" replied Caroline, desperately, for the thought of this grief touched her heart. "I did not come here to suffer in this way. I was brought here without even being told that you had sons. Let me leave you without trouble as well as without blame. I will never see M. de Villemer again; this is all I can promise. If he should follow me--" "Do not doubt that he will! For Heaven's sake, speak lower! What if any one should hear you! In case he should follow you, what would you do?" "I shall go where he cannot follow me. Permit me to arrange this according to my own judgment. In an hour I will return to take leave of you, Madame de Villemer." XX Mlle de Saint-Geneix went out with such energetic resolution that Madame de Villemer dared not say another word to detain her. She saw that Caroline was irritated and hurt. She blamed herself for having made it too evident that "she knew all," while the poor woman actually knew nothing, for she did not perceive Caroline's real affection. So far was she from this that she tried to persuade herself Caroline had always loved the Duke, that she had sacrificed herself to his happiness, or that, perhaps, like a practical girl, she was counting upon the return of his friendship after the honeymoon of his marriage. "In the latter case," thought the Marchioness, "it would be dangerous to let her remain in the house. Some time or other it would bring unhappiness into my young household; but it is too soon to have her go away--and so abruptly: the Marquis would be almost insane. She will grow calm, lay her plans, and whenever she returns with them I will persuade her to accommodate herself to mine."