surgeon cutting into his own flesh even more than into that of
others, in order that the truth might appear and everyone be saved.
"Marie," said he, "it is not I whom you love. All that you feel for me is
respect and gratitude and daughterly affection. Remember what your
feelings were at the time when our marriage was decided upon. You were
then in love with nobody, and you accepted the offer like a sensible
girl, feeling certain that I should render you happy, and that the union
was a right and satisfactory one.... But since then my brother has
come here; love has sprung up in your heart in quite a natural way; and
it is Pierre, Pierre alone, whom you love as a lover and a husband should
be loved."

Exhausted though she was, utterly distracted, too, by the light which,
despite herself, was dawning within her, Marie still stubbornly and
desperately protested.

"But why do you struggle like this against the truth, my child?" said
Guillaume; "I do not reproach you. It was I who chose that this should
happen, like the old madman I am. What was bound to come has come, and
doubtless it is for the best. I only wanted to learn the truth from you
in order that I might take a decision and act uprightly."

These words vanquished her, and her tears gushed forth. It seemed as
though something had been rent asunder within her; and she felt quite
overcome, as if by the weight of a new truth of which she had hitherto
been ignorant. "Ah! it was cruel of you," she said, "to do me such
violence so as to make me read my heart. I swear to you again that I did
not know I loved Pierre in the way you say. But you have opened my heart,
and roused what was quietly slumbering in it.... And it is true, I do
love Pierre, I love him now as you have said. And so here we are, all
three of us supremely wretched through your doing!"

She sobbed, and with a sudden feeling of modesty freed her wrists from
his grasp. He noticed, however, that no blush rose to her face. Truth to
tell, her virginal loyalty was not in question; she had no cause to
reproach herself with any betrayal; it was he alone, perforce, who had
awakened her to love. For a moment they looked at one another through
their tears: she so strong and healthy, her bosom heaving at each
heart-beat, and her white arms--arms that could both charm and
sustain--bare almost to her shoulders; and he still vigorous, with his
thick fleece of white hair and his black moustaches, which gave his
count