"You are listening to the dictates of your cowardice, madame. I thought you were a different woman, but you are unworthy of God's mercy." She fell on her knees: "Oh! Do not abandon me, I implore you. Advise me what to do." "Open M. de Fourville's eyes," he said, shortly. "It is his duty to end this _liaison_." She was seized with terror at this advice. "But he would kill them, Monsieur l'abbe! And should I be the one to tell him? Oh, not that! Never, never!" He raised his hand as if to curse her, his whole soul stirred with anger. "Live on in your shame and in your wickedness, for you are more guilty than they are. You are the wife who condones her husband's sin! My place is no longer here." He turned to go, trembling all over with wrath. She followed him distractedly, ready to give in, and beginning to promise; but he would not listen to her and strode rapidly along, furiously shaking his big blue umbrella which was nearly as high as himself. He saw Julien standing near the gate superintending the pruning of some trees, so he turned off to the left to reach the road by way of the Couillards' farm, and as he walked he kept saying to Jeanne: "Leave me, madame. I have nothing further to say to you." In the middle of the yard, and right in his path, some children were standing around the kennel of the dog Mirza, their attention concentrated on something which the baron was also carefully considering as he stood in their midst with his hands behind his back, looking like a schoolmaster. "Do come and see me again, Monsieur l'abbe," pleaded Jeanne. "If you will return in a few days, I shall be able to tell you then what I think is the best course to take, and we can talk it over together." By that time they had almost reached the group of children (which the baron had left, to avoid meeting and speaking to his enemy, the priest) and the cure went to see what it was that was interesting them so deeply. It was the dog whelping; five little pups were already crawling round the mother, who gently licked them as she lay on her side before the kennel, and just as the cure looked over the children's heads, a sixth appeared. When they saw it, all the boys and girls clapped their hands, crying: "There's another! There's another!" To them it was simply a perfectly pure and natural amusement, and they watched these pups being born as they might have watched the apples falling from a tree.