Jean sank on a chair near the fireplace.  He remained there quite overpowered with his emotion.  The old priest looked at him.

“To see you suffer, my poor boy!  That such suffering should fall upon you!  It is too cruel, too unjust!”

At that moment some one knocked gently at the door.

“Ah!” said the Cure, “do not be afraid, Jean.  I will send them away.”

The Abbe went to the door, opened it, and recoiled as if before an unexpected apparition.

It was Bettina.  In a moment she had seen Jean, and going direct to him: 

“You!” cried she.  “Oh, how glad I am!”

He rose.  She took his hands, and addressing the Cure, she said: 

“I beg your pardon, Monsieur le Cure, for going to him first.  You, I saw yesterday, and him, not for three whole weeks, not since a certain night, when he left our house, sad and suffering.”

She still held Jean’s hands.  He had neither power to make a movement nor to utter a sound.

“And now,” continued Betting, “are you better?  No, not yet, I can see, still sad.  Ah, I have done well to come!  It was an inspiration!  However, it embarrasses me a little, it embarrasses me a great deal, to find you here.  You will understand why when you know what I have come to ask of your godfather.”

She relinquished his hands, and turning toward the Abbe, said: 

“I have come to beg you to listen to my confession—­yes, my confession.  But do not go away, Monsieur Jean; I will make my confession publicly.  I am quite willing to speak before you, and now I think of it, it will be better thus.  Let us sit down, shall we?”

She felt herself full of confidence and daring.  She burned with fever, but with that fever which, on the field of battle, gives to a soldier ardor, heroism, and disdain of danger.  The emotion which made Bettina’s heart beat quicker than usual was a high and generous emotion.  She said to herself: 

“I will be loved!  I will love!  I will be happy!  I will make him happy!  And since he has not sufficient courage to do it, I must have it for both.  I must march alone, my head high, and my heart at ease, to the conquest of our love, to the conquest of our happiness!”

From her first words Bettina had gained over the Abbe and Jean a complete ascendancy.  They let her say what she liked, they let her do as she liked, they felt that the hour was supreme; they understood that what was happening would be decisive, irrevocable, but neither was in a position to foresee.

They sat down obediently, almost automatically; they waited, they listened.  Alone, of the three, Bettina retained her composure.  It was in a calm and even voice that she began.