them!" she cried.

"What do you mean?" exclaimed the mother in agony. She read the truth in
her daughter's eyes.

"You know--" she began.

"That he is her lover," cried Micheline, interrupting her. "Don't you see
that I am dying through it?" she added, sobbing bitterly and falling into
her mother's arms.

The mistress carried her as if she had been a child into Cayrol's private
office, and shut the door. Then, kneeling beside the couch on which
Micheline was stretched, she gave vent to her grief. She begged her
daughter to speak to her, and warmed her hands with kisses; then, seeing
her still cold and motionless, she was frightened, and wanted to call for
help.

"No; be quiet!" murmured Micheline, recovering. "Let no one know. I ought
to have held my peace; but I have suffered so much I could not help
myself.

"My life is blasted, you see. Take me away; save me from this infamy!
Jeanne, my sister, and Serge. Oh! make me forget it! For pity's sake,
mamma, you who are so strong, you who have always done what you wished,
take from my heart all the pain that is there!"

Madame Desvarennes, overcome by such a load of grief, lost command of
herself, and, quite brokenhearted, began to cry and moan.

"O God! Micheline, my poor child! you were suffering so and did not tell
me. Oh! I knew you no longer trusted your old mother. And I stupidly did
not guess it! I said to myself, at least she knows nothing about it, and
sacrificed everything to keep the knowledge of their wrong-doing from
you. Don't cry any more, darling, you will break my heart. I, who would
have given up everything in the world to see you happy! Oh, I have loved
you too much! How I am punished!"

"It is I who am punished," said Micheline, sobbing, "for not obeying you.
Ah! children ought always to heed their mother. She divines the danger.
Is it not too horrible, mamma? I, who have sacrificed everything for him,
to think that he does not love me, and never will love me! What will my
life be without confidence, hope, or affection? I am too unhappy. It
would be better to die!"

"Die! you!" cried her mother, whose eyes, wet with tears, dried in a
moment, as if by an inward fire. "Die! Come, don't talk such nonsense!
Because a man treats you with scorn and betrays you? Are men worth dying
for? No, you shall live, my darling, with your old mother. You shall have
a deed of separation from your husband."

"And he will be free," exclaimed Micheline, angrily.