“With all my heart;” and she smiled with a sense of relief.

But the doctor leaned over the table to her, and said in a cautious and most emphatic whisper, “We will talk about your child.”

The work dropped from Josephine’s hands:  she turned her face wildly on Aubertin, and faltered out, “M—­my child?”

“My words are plain,” replied he gravely.  “Your child.”

When the doctor repeated these words, when Josephine looking in his face saw he spoke from knowledge, however acquired, and not from guess, she glided down slowly off the sofa and clasped his knees as he stood before her, and hid her face in an agony of shame and terror on his knees.

“Forgive me,” she sobbed.  “Pray do not expose me!  Do not destroy me.”

“Unhappy young lady,” said he, “did you think you had deceived me, or that you are fit to deceive any but the blind?  Your face, your anguish after Colonel Dujardin’s departure, your languor, and then your sudden robustness, your appetite, your caprices, your strange sojourn at Frejus, your changed looks and loss of health on your return!  Josephine, your old friend has passed many an hour thinking of you, divining your folly, following your trouble step by step.  Yet you never invited him to aid you.”

Josephine faltered out a lame excuse.  If she had revered him less she could have borne to confess to him.  She added it would be a relief to her to confide in him.

“Then tell me all,” said he.

She consented almost eagerly, and told him—­nearly all.  The old man was deeply affected.  He murmured in a broken voice, “Your story is the story of your sex, self-sacrifice, first to your mother, then to Camille, now to your husband.”

“And he is well worthy of any sacrifice I can make,” said Josephine.  “But oh, how hard it is to live!”

“I hope to make it less hard to you ere long,” said the doctor quietly.  He then congratulated himself on having forced Josephine to confide in him.  “For,” said he, “you never needed an experienced friend more than at this moment.  Your mother will not always be so blind as of late.  Edouard is suspicious.  Jacintha is a shrewd young woman, and very inquisitive.”

Josephine was not at the end of her concealments:  she was ashamed to let him know she had made a confidant of Jacintha and not of him.  She held her peace.

“Then,” continued Aubertin, “there is the terrible chance of Raynal’s return.  But ere I take on me to advise you, what are your own plans?”

“I don’t know,” said Josephine helplessly.

“You—­don’t—­know!” cried the doctor, looking at her in utter amazement.

“It is the answer of a mad woman, is it not?  Doctor, I am little better.  My foot has slipped on the edge of a precipice.  I close my eyes, and let myself glide down it.  What will become of me?”

“All shall be well,” said Aubertin, “provided you do not still love that man.”