He was trying to crush her fingers in the strong grip of his large, muscular hand, and she, livid with pain, tried in vain to free them from that vice which was crushing them; the agony made her pant, and the tears came into her eyes.  “You see that I am the master, and the stronger,” he said.  And when he somewhat loosened his grasp, she asked him:  “Do you think that I am a religious woman?”

He was surprised and stammered:  “Yes.”  “Do you think that I could lie if I swore to the truth of anything to you, before an altar on which Christ’s body is?” “No.”  “Will you go with me to some church?” “What for?” “You shall see.  Will you?” “If you absolutely wish it, yes.”

She raised her voice and said:  “Philip!” And the coachman, bending down a little, without taking his eyes from his horses, seemed to turn his ear alone towards his mistress, who went on:  “Drive to St. Philip-du-Roule’s.”  And the victoria, which had got to the entrance of the Bois de Boulogne, returned to Paris.

Husband and wife did not exchange a word during the drive, and when the carriage stopped before the church, Madame de Mascaret jumped out, and entered it, followed by the count, a few yards behind her.  She went, without stopping, as far as the choir-screen, and falling on her knees at a chair, she buried her face in her hands.  She prayed for a long time, and he, standing behind her, could see that she was crying.  She wept noiselessly, like women do weep when they are in great, poignant grief.  There was a kind of undulation in her body, which ended in a little sob, which was hidden and stifled by her fingers.

But Count de Mascaret thought that the situation was lasting too long, and he touched her on the shoulder.  That contact recalled her to herself, as if she had been burnt, and getting up, she looked straight into his eyes.  “This is what I have to say to you.  I am afraid of nothing, whatever you may do to me.  You may kill me if you like.  One of your children is not yours, and one only; that I swear to you before God, who hears me here.  That is the only revenge which was possible for me, in return for all your abominable tyrannies of the male, in return for the penal servitude of childbearing to which you have condemned me.  Who was my lover?  That you will never know!  You may suspect everyone, but you will never find out.  I gave myself up to him, without love and without pleasure, only for the sake of betraying you, and he also made me a mother.  Which is his child?  That also you will never know.  I have seven; try and find out!  I intended to tell you this later, for one has not avenged oneself on a man by deceiving him, unless he knows it.  You have driven me to confess it to-day.  I now have finished.”

She hurried through the church, towards the open door, expecting to hear behind her the quick steps of her husband whom she had defied, and to be knocked to the ground by a blow of his fist, but she heard nothing, and reached her carriage.  She jumped into it at a bound, overwhelmed with anguish, and breathless with fear; so she called out to the coachman:  “Home!” and the horses set off at a quick trot.