A servant entered the room with a light and carried the child away.  I arose, Brigitte also; but she suddenly placed her hand on her heart and fell to the floor.

I hastened to her side; she had not lost consciousness and begged me not to call any one.  She explained that she was subject to violent palpitation of the heart and had been troubled by fainting spells from her youth; that there was no danger and no remedy.  I kneeled beside her; she sweetly opened her arms; I raised her head and placed it on my shoulder.

“Ah! my friend,” she said, “I pity you.”

“Listen to me,” I whispered in her ear, “I am a wretched fool, but I can keep nothing on my heart.  Who is this Monsieur de Dalens who lives on the mountain and comes to see you?”

She appeared astonished to hear me mention that name.

“Dalens?” she replied.  “He was my husband’s friend.”

She looked at me as if to inquire:  “Why do you ask?” It seemed to me that her face wore a grieved expression.  I bit my lips.  “If she wants to deceive me,” I thought, “I was foolish to question her.”

Brigitte rose with difficulty; she took her fan and began to walk up and down the room.

She was breathing hard; I had wounded her.  She was absorbed in thought and we exchanged two or three glances that were almost cold.  She stepped to her desk, opened it, drew out a package of letters tied together with a ribbon, and threw it at my feet without a word.

But I was looking neither at her nor her letters; I had just thrown a stone into the abyss and was listening to the echoes.  For the first time offended pride was depicted on Brigitte’s face.  There was no longer either anxiety or pity in her eyes, and, just as I had come to feel myself other than I had ever been, so I saw in her a woman I did not know.

“Read that,” she said, finally.  I stepped up to her and took her hand.

“Read that, read that!” she repeated in freezing tones.

I took the letters.  At that moment I felt so persuaded of her innocence that I was seized with remorse.

“You remind me,” she said, “that I owe you the story of my life; sit down and you shall learn it.  You will open these drawers, and you will read all that I have written and all that has been written to me.”

She sat down and motioned me to a chair.  I saw that she found it difficult to speak.  She was pale as death, her voice constrained, her throat swollen.

“Brigitte!  Brigitte!” I cried, “in the name of heaven, do not speak!  God is my witness I was not born such as you see me; during my life I have been neither suspicious nor distrustful.  I have been undone, my heart has been seared by the treachery of others.  A frightful experience has led me to the very brink of the precipice, and for a year I have seen nothing but evil here below.  God is my witness that, up to this day, I did not believe myself capable of playing the ignoble role I have assumed, the meanest role of all, that of a jealous lover.  God is my witness that I love you and that you are the only one in the world who can cure me of the past.