“Where are you?” cried the count, who came towards us, bareheaded.

Ever since my return he had insisted on sharing our interviews, —­either because he wanted amusement, or feared the countess would tell me her sorrows and complain to me, or because he was jealous of a pleasure he did not share.

“How he follows me!” she cried, in a tone of despair.  “Let us go into the orchard, we shall escape him.  We can stoop as we run by the hedge, and he will not see us.”

We made the hedge a rampart and reached the enclosure, where we were soon at a good distance from the count in an alley of almond-trees.

“Dear Henriette,” I then said to her, pressing her arm against my heart and stopping to contemplate her in her sorrow, “you have guided me with true knowledge along the perilous ways of the great world; let me in return give you some advice which may help you to end this duel without witnesses, in which you must inevitably be worsted, for you are fighting with unequal weapons.  You must not struggle any longer with a madman—­”

“Hush!” she said, dashing aside the tears that rolled from her eyes.

“Listen to me, dear,” I continued.  “After a single hour’s talk with the count, which I force myself to endure for love of you, my thoughts are bewildered, my head heavy; he makes me doubtful of my own intellect; the same ideas repeated over and over again seem to burn themselves on my brain.  Well-defined monomanias are not communicated; but when the madness consists in a distorted way of looking at everything, and when it lurks under all discussions, then it can and does injure the minds of those who live with it.  Your patience is sublime, but will it not end in disordering you?  For your sake, for that of your children, change your system with the count.  Your adorable kindness has made him selfish; you have treated him as a mother treats the child she spoils; but now, if you want to live—­and you do want it,” I said, looking at her, “use the control you have over him.  You know what it is; he loves you and he fears you; make him fear you more; oppose his erratic will with your firm will.  Extend your power over him, confine his madness to a moral sphere just as we lock maniacs in a cell.”

“Dear child,” she said, smiling bitterly, “a woman without a heart might do it.  But I am a mother; I should make a poor jailer.  Yes, I can suffer, but I cannot make others suffer.  Never!” she said, “never! not even to obtain some great and honorable result.  Besides, I should have to lie in my heart, disguise my voice, lower my head, degrade my gesture—­do not ask of me such falsehoods.  I can stand between Monsieur de Mortsauf and his children, I willingly receive his blows that they may not fall on others; I can do all that, and will do it to conciliate conflicting interests, but I can do no more.”

“Let me worship thee, O saint, thrice holy!” I exclaimed, kneeling at her feet and kissing her robe, with which I wiped my tears.  “But if he kills you?” I cried.