So far the Baron, artistically diplomatic, had formulated his remonstrances very judiciously.  He had, as may be observed, worked up to the mention of this name with superior skill; and yet Hortense, as she heard it, winced as if stung to the quick.

“Listen to me; I have had great experience, and I have seen much,” he went on, stopping his daughter’s attempt to speak.  “That lady is very cold to your husband.  Yes, you have been made the victim of a practical joke, and I will prove it to you.  Yesterday Wenceslas was dining with her—­”

“Dining with her!” cried the young wife, starting to her feet, and looking at her father with horror in every feature.  “Yesterday!  After having had my letter!  Oh, great God!—­Why did I not take the veil rather than marry?  But now my life is not my own!  I have the child!” and she sobbed.

Her weeping went to Madame Hulot’s heart.  She came out of her room and ran to her daughter, taking her in her arms, and asking her those questions, stupid with grief, which first rose to her lips.

“Now we have tears,” said the Baron to himself, “and all was going so well!  What is to be done with women who cry?”

“My child,” said the Baroness, “listen to your father!  He loves us all —­come, come—­”

“Come, Hortense, my dear little girl, cry no more, you make yourself too ugly!” said the Baron, “Now, be a little reasonable.  Go sensibly home, and I promise you that Wenceslas shall never set foot in that woman’s house.  I ask you to make the sacrifice, if it is a sacrifice to forgive the husband you love so small a fault.  I ask you—­for the sake of my gray hairs, and of the love you owe your mother.  You do not want to blight my later years with bitterness and regret?”

Hortense fell at her father’s feet like a crazed thing, with the vehemence of despair; her hair, loosely pinned up, fell about her, and she held out her hands with an expression that painted her misery.

“Father,” she said, “ask my life!  Take it if you will, but at least take it pure and spotless, and I will yield it up gladly.  Do not ask me to die in dishonor and crime.  I am not at all like my husband; I cannot swallow an outrage.  If I went back under my husband’s roof, I should be capable of smothering him in a fit of jealousy—­or of doing worse!  Do no exact from me a thing that is beyond my powers.  Do not have to mourn for me still living, for the least that can befall me is to go mad.  I feel madness close upon me!

“Yesterday, yesterday, he could dine with that woman, after having read my letter?—­Are other men made so?  My life I give you, but do not let my death be ignominious!—­His fault?—­A small one!  When he has a child by that woman!”

“A child!” cried Hulot, starting back a step or two.  “Come.  This is really some fooling.”

At this juncture Victorin and Lisbeth arrived, and stood dumfounded at the scene.  The daughter was prostrate at her father’s feet.  The Baroness, speechless between her maternal feelings and her conjugal duty, showed a harassed face bathed in tears.