One morning as we left the breakfast table, about a month after my arrival, the countess took me by the arm, darted through an iron gate which led into the vineyard, and dragged me hastily among the vines.

“He will kill me!” she cried.  “And I want to live—­for my children’s sake.  But oh! not a day’s respite!  Always to walk among thorns! to come near falling every instant! every instant to have to summon all my strength to keep my balance!  No human being can long endure such strain upon the system.  If I were certain of the ground I ought to take, if my resistance could be a settled thing, then my mind might concentrate upon it—­but no, every day the attacks change character and leave me without defence; my sorrows are not one, they are manifold.  Ah! my friend—­” she cried, leaning her head upon my shoulder, and not continuing her confidence.  “What will become of me?  Oh, what shall I do?” she said presently, struggling with thoughts she did not express.  “How can I resist?  He will kill me!  No, I will kill myself—­but that would be a crime!  Escape? yes, but my children!  Separate from him? how, after fifteen years of marriage, how could I ever tell my parents that I will not live with him? for if my father and mother came here he would be calm, polite, intelligent, judicious.  Besides, can married women look to fathers or mothers?  Do they not belong body and soul to their husbands?  I could live tranquil if not happy—­I have found strength in my chaste solitude, I admit it; but if I am deprived of this negative happiness I too shall become insane.  My resistance is based on powerful reasons which are not personal to myself.  It is a crime to give birth to poor creatures condemned to endless suffering.  Yet my position raises serious questions, so serious that I dare not decide them alone; I cannot be judge and party both.  To-morrow I will go to Tours and consult my new confessor, the Abbe Birotteau—­for my dear and virtuous Abbe de la Berge is dead,” she said, interrupting herself.  “Though he was severe, I miss and shall always miss his apostolic power.  His successor is an angel of goodness, who pities but does not reprimand.  Still, all courage draws fresh life from the heart of religion; what soul is not strengthened by the voice of the Holy Spirit?  My God,” she said, drying her tears and raising her eyes to heaven, “for what sin am I thus punished?—­I believe, yes, Felix, I believe it, we must pass through a fiery furnace before we reach the saints, the just made perfect of the upper spheres.  Must I keep silence?  Am I forbidden, oh, my God, to cry to the heart of a friend?  Do I love him too well?” She pressed me to her heart as though she feared to lose me.  “Who will solve my doubts?  My conscience does not reproach me.  The stars shine from above on men; may not the soul, the human star, shed its light upon a friend, if we go to him with pure thoughts?”

I listened to this dreadful cry in silence, holding her moist hand in mine that was still more moist.  I pressed it with a force to which Henriette replied with an equal pressure.