I have remained a natural man, a man of former days.  Yes, I will confess it, you have made me terribly jealous, because you are a woman of another race, of another soul, with other requirements.  Oh!  I shall never forget the things you said to me, but from that day I troubled myself no more about you.  I did not kill you, because then I should have had no means on earth of ever discovering which of our—­of your children is not mine.  I have waited, but I have suffered more than you would believe, for I can no longer venture to love them, except, perhaps, the two eldest; I no longer venture to look at them, to call them to me, to kiss them; I cannot take them on my knee without asking myself, ‘Can it be this one?’ I have been correct in my behavior toward you for six years, and even kind and complaisant.  Tell me the truth, and I swear that I will do nothing unkind.”

He thought, in spite of the darkness of the carriage, that he could perceive that she was moved, and feeling certain that she was going to speak at last, he said:  “I beg you, I beseech you to tell me” he said.

“I have been more guilty than you think perhaps,” she replied, “but I could no longer endure that life of continual motherhood, and I had only one means of driving you from me.  I lied before God and I lied, with my hand raised to my children’s head, for I never have wronged you.”

He seized her arm in the darkness, and squeezing it as he had done on that terrible day of their drive in the Bois de Boulogne, he stammered: 

“Is that true?”

“It is true.”

But, wild with grief, he said with a groan:  “I shall have fresh doubts that will never end!  When did you lie, the last time or now?  How am I to believe you at present?  How can one believe a woman after that?  I shall never again know what I am to think.  I would rather you had said to me, ‘It is Jacques or it is Jeanne.’”

The carriage drove into the courtyard of the house and when it had drawn up in front of the steps the count alighted first, as usual, and offered his wife his arm to mount the stairs.  As soon as they reached the first floor he said:  “May I speak to you for a few moments longer?” And she replied, “I am quite willing.”

They went into a small drawing-room and a footman, in some surprise, lighted the wax candles.  As soon as he had left the room and they were alone the count continued:  “How am I to know the truth?  I have begged you a thousand times to speak, but you have remained dumb, impenetrable, inflexible, inexorable, and now to-day you tell me that you have been lying.  For six years you have actually allowed me to believe such a thing!  No, you are lying now, I do not know why, but out of pity for me, perhaps?”

She replied in a sincere and convincing manner:  “If I had not done so, I should have had four more children in the last six years!”

“Can a mother speak like that?”

“Oh!” she replied, “I do not feel that I am the mother of children who never have been born; it is enough for me to be the mother of those that I have and to love them with all my heart.  I am a woman of the civilized world, monsieur—­we all are—­and we are no longer, and we refuse to be, mere females to restock the earth.”