(Curtain.)

SECOND SCENE

(The Auberge des Adrets.  Adolphe and Henriette are seated at the same table where Maurice and Henriette were sitting in the second act.  A cup of coffee stands in front of Adolphe.  Henriette has ordered nothing.)

Adolphe.  You believe then that he will come here?

Henriette.  I am sure.  He was released this noon for lack of evidence, but he didn’t want to show himself in the streets before it was dark.

Adolphe.  Poor fellow!  Oh, I tell you, life seems horrible to me since yesterday.

Henriette.  And what about me?  I am afraid to live, dare hardly breathe, dare hardly think even, since I know that somebody is spying not only on my words but on my thoughts.

Adolphe.  So it was here you sat that night when I couldn’t find you?

Henriette.  Yes, but don’t talk of it.  I could die from shame when I think of it.  Adolphe, you are made of a different, a better, stuff than he or I—­

Adolphe.  Sh, sh, sh!

Henriette.  Yes, indeed!  And what was it that made me stay here?  I was lazy; I was tired; his success intoxicated me and bewitched me—­I cannot explain it.  But if you had come, it would never have happened.  And to-day you are great, and he is small—­less than the least of all.  Yesterday he had one hundred thousand francs.  To-day he has nothing, because his play has been withdrawn.  And public opinion will never excuse him, for his lack of faith will be judged as harshly as if he were the murderer, and those that see farthest hold that the child died from sorrow, so that he was responsible for it anyhow.

Adolphe.  You know what my thoughts are in this matter, Henriette, but I should like to know that both of you are spotless.  Won’t you tell me what those dreadful words of yours meant?  It cannot be a chance that your talk in a festive moment like that dealt so largely with killing and the scaffold.

Henriette.  It was no chance.  It was something that had to be said, something I cannot tell you—­probably because I have no right to appear spotless in your eyes, seeing that I am not spotless.

Adolphe.  All this is beyond me.

Henriette.  Let us talk of something else—­Do you believe there are many unpunished criminals at large among us, some of whom may even be our intimate friends?

Adolphe. [Nervously] Why?  What do you mean?

Henriette.  Don’t you believe that every human being at some time or another has been guilty of some kind of act which would fall under the law if it were discovered?

Adolphe.  Yes, I believe that is true, but no evil act escapes being punished by one’s own conscience at least. [Rises and unbuttons his coat] And—­nobody is really good who has not erred. [Breathing heavily] For in order to know how to forgive, one must have been in need of forgiveness—­I had a friend whom we used to regard as a model man.  He never spoke a hard word to anybody; he forgave everything and everybody; and he suffered insults with a strange satisfaction that we couldn’t explain.  At last, late in life, he gave me his secret in a single word:  I am a penitent! [He sits down again.]