Jeanne did not answer, but her eyes filled with tears;

“You know that I love you,” continued the mistress.  “Come, come to my arms as you used to do when you were little and were suffering.  Place your head thereon my heart and let your tears flow.  I see they are choking you.”

Jeanne could no longer resist, and falling on her knees beside Madame Desvarennes, she buried her face in the silky and scented folds of her dress like a frightened bird that flies to the nest and hides itself under the wings of its mother.

This great and hopeless grief was to the mistress a certain proof that Cayrol was right.  Jeanne had loved and still loved another man than her husband.  But why had she not said anything, and why had she allowed herself to be married to the banker?  She had resisted, she remembered now.  She had struggled, and the refusals they had put down to pride they must now attribute to passion.

She did not wish to be separated from him whom she loved.  Hence the struggle that had ended in her abandoning her hand to Cayrol, perhaps in a moment of despair and discouragement.  But why had he whom she loved not married her?  What obstacle had arisen between him and the young girl?  Jeanne, so beautiful, and dowered by Madame Desvarennes, who then could have hesitated to ask her hand?

Perhaps he whom Jeanne loved was unworthy of her?  No!  She would not have chosen him.  Perhaps he was not free to marry?  Yes, it must be that.  Some married man, perhaps!  A scoundrel who did not mind breaking a young girl’s heart!  Where had she met him?  In society at her house in the Rue Saint-Dominique, perhaps!  Who could tell?  He very likely still continued to come there.  At the thought Madame Desvarennes grew angry.  She wished to know the name of the man so that she might have an explanation with him, and tell him what she thought of his base conduct.  The gentleman should have respectable, well-educated girls to trifle with, should he?  And he risked nothing!  He should be shown to the door with all honors due to his shameful conduct.

Jeanne was still weeping silently at Madame Desvarennes’s knee.  The latter raised her head gently and wiped away the tears with her lace pocket-handkerchief.

“Come, my child! all this deluge means nothing.  You must make up your mind.  I can understand your hiding anything from your husband, but not from me!  What is your lover’s name?”

This question so simply put, threw a faint light on Jeanne’s troubled brain.  She saw the danger she was running.  To speak before Madame Desvarennes!  To tell the name of him who had been false to her!  To her!  Was it possible?  In a moment she understood that she was about to destroy Micheline and Serge.  Her conscience revolted and she would not.  She raised herself and looking at Madame Desvarennes with still frightened eyes,

“For pity’s sake, forget my tears!  Don’t believe what my husband has told you.  Never seek to know.  Remain ignorant as you are on the subject!”