Even at this second, she could have annulled the sentence she had thoughtlessly let slip. She had only to laugh, to play the madcap. But, losing her self-command, unconscious of the gravity of what she was doing, she obstinately maintained her statement. "I never told you, my dear," she replied, "that my mother left me that ring." Thereupon, Roubaud, also turning pale, stared at her threateningly. "What do you mean," he retorted, "by saying you never told me so? Why, you've told it me twenty times over! There's no harm in the President giving you a ring. He has made you other presents of much greater value. But what need was there to hide it from me? Why lie, in speaking of your mother?" "I never mentioned my mother, my darling," she persisted. "You are mistaken." This obstinacy was idiotic. She was aware that she was ruining herself, that he could clearly see through her. And she then wanted to retrieve her position, to swallow her words. But it was too late. She felt her features becoming discomposed. Do what she would, the truth burst from all her being. The chill on her cheeks had spread all over her face, and a nervous twitch dragged down her lip. Roubaud looked frightful. He had suddenly become red again, so red that it seemed as if his veins were about to burst. He had grasped her by the wrists, looking close into her face so as to be better able to follow, in the terror-stricken distraction of her eyes, what she dared not utter aloud. He stammered a great oath, which threw her into a fright, and, foreseeing a blow, she bowed her head, covering her face with her arm. A trifling, wretched, insignificant incident--the failure to recollect the falsehood she had told about this ring--had just now, in the few words they had exchanged together, supplied evidence of a matter she had every desire to conceal. And a minute had sufficed to bring this about. With a jerk, he threw her across the bed, and struck her haphazard with his two fists. In three years he had not given her so much as a flip, and now he was beating her black and blue, in the brutish fit of passion of a man with coarse hands, who had formerly shunted railway carriages. Uttering another frightful oath, he exclaimed: "You did something wrong! Something wrong! Something wrong!" As he repeated the words, his rage increased, and he belaboured her with his fists, each time he pronounced them, as if to drive them into her flesh. His voice at last became so thick with anger, that it hissed, and ceased to be intelligible. It was only then that he heard her, quite weak from his blows, saying "No." She could imagine no other defence. She denied the accusation, so that he might not kill her. And this utterance, this obstinate clinging to the lie, made him completely furious. "Confess that you did something wrong," said he. "No, no!" she answered.