_Lucie._ Just when the child is most in need of every care, you propose to send her off alone; alone, do you understand, alone! To tear her away from here, put her into a train, and send her off to Paris, like a sick animal you want to get rid of. If I consented to that I should feel that I was as bad as the man who seduced her. Be honest, Julien: remember it is in our interest you propose to sacrifice her. We shall gain peace and quiet at the price of her loneliness and despair. To save ourselves--serious troubles, I admit--we are to abandon this child to strangers ... away from all love and care and comfort, without a friend to put kind arms around her and let her sob her grief away. I implore you, Julien, I entreat you, for our children's sake, don't keep me from her, don't ask me to do this shameful thing. _Brignac._ There would have been no question of misery if she had behaved herself. _Lucie._ She is this man's victim! But she won't go. You'll have to drive her out as you drove out the servant.... And then--after that--she is to let her child go; to stifle her strongest instinct; to silence the cry of love that consoles us all for the tortures we have to go through; to turn away her eyes and say, "Take him away, I don't want him." And at that price she is to be forgiven for another person's crime.... Then that is Society's welcome to the new born child? _Brignac._ To the child born outside of marriage, yes. If it wasn't for that, there would soon be nothing but illegitimate births. It is to preserve the family that society condemns the natural child. _Lucie._ You say you want a larger number of births, and at the same time you say to women: "No motherhood without marriage, and no marriage without money." As long as you've not changed that, all your circulars will be met with shouts of derision--half from hate, half from pity.... If you drive Annette out, I shall go with her. _Lucie_ and _Annette_ go out into the world. As middle-class girls they have been taught a little of everything and not much of anything. They try all kinds of work to enable them to make a living, but though they toil hard and long hours, they barely earn enough for a meager existence. As long as _Annette's_ condition is not noticeable, life is bearable; but soon everybody remarks her state. She and _Lucie_ are driven from place to place. In her despair _Annette_ does what many girls in her position have done before her and will do after her so long as the Brignacs and their morality are dominant. She visits a midwife, and one more victim is added to the large number slaughtered upon the altar of morality. The last act is in the court room. _Mme. Thomas_, the midwife, is on trial for criminal abortion. With her are a number of women whose names have been found on her register.