“As she grew up, it was worse still.  They kept the girls from her, as if she were stricken with the plague.  Remember that she had nothing to learn, nothing; that she no longer had the right to the symbolical wreath of orange-flowers; that almost before she could read, she had penetrated that redoubtable mystery, which mothers scarcely allow their daughters to guess, trembling as they enlighten them, on the night of their marriage.

“When she went through the streets, always accompanied by her governess, as if her parents feared some fresh, terrible adventure, with her eyes cast down under the load of that mysterious disgrace, which she felt was always weighing upon her, the other girls, who were not nearly so innocent as people thought, whispered and giggled as they looked at her knowingly, and immediately turned their heads absently, if she happened to look at them.  People scarcely greeted her; only a few men bowed to her, and the mothers pretended not to see her, whilst some young blackguards called her Madame Baptiste, after the name of the footman who had outraged and ruined her.

“Nobody knew the secret torture of her mind, for she hardly ever spoke, and never laughed, and her parents themselves appeared uncomfortable in her presence, as if they bore her a constant grudge for some irreparable fault.

“An honest man would not willingly give his hand to a liberated convict, would he, even if that convict were his own son?  And Monsieur and Madame Fontanelle looked on their daughter as they would have done on a son who had just been released from the hulks.  She was pretty and pale, tall, slender, distinguished-looking, and she would have pleased me very much, Monsieur, but for that unfortunate affair.

“Well, when a new sub-prefect was appointed here eighteen months ago, he brought his private secretary with him.  He was a queer sort of fellow, who had lived in the Latin Quarter[21], it appears.  He saw Mademoiselle Fontanelle, and fell in love with her, and when told of what occurred, he merely said:  ’Bah!  That is just a guarantee for the future, and I would rather it should have happened before I married her, than afterwards.  I shall sleep tranquilly with that woman.’

[Footnote 21:  The students’ quarter in France, where so many of them lead rackety, fast lives.—­TRANSLATOR.]

“He paid his addresses to her, asked for her hand, and married her, and then, not being deficient in boldness, he paid wedding-calls,[22] as if nothing had happened.  Some people returned them, others did not, but, at last, the affair began to be forgotten, and she took her proper place in society.

[Footnote 22:  In France and Germany, the newly-married couple pay the wedding-calls, which is the direct opposite to our custom.—­TRANSLATOR.]

“She adored her husband as if he had been a god, for, you must remember, he had restored her to honor and to social life, that he had braved public opinion, faced insults, and, in a word, performed such a courageous act, as few men would accomplish, and she felt the most exalted and uneasy love for him.