“Ah, my poor mother.  And she kissed me so kindly just now—­she will kiss me no more.  Oh, I am not ashamed of marrying him.  I am only ashamed of the cowardice that dared not do it in face of all the world.  We had scarce been happy a fortnight, when a letter came from Colonel Raynal.  He was alive.  I drove my true husband away, wretch that I was.  None but bad women have an atom of sense.  I tried to do my duty to my legal husband.  He was my benefactor.  I thought it was my duty.  Was it?  I don’t know:  I have lost the sense of right and wrong.  I turned from a living creature to a lie.  He who had scattered benefits on me and all this house; he whom it was too little to love; he ought to have been adored:  this man came here one night to wife proud, joyous, and warm-hearted.  He found a cradle, and two women watching it.  Now Edouard, now monsieur, do you see that life is impossible to me?  One bravely accused herself:  she was innocent.  One swooned away like a guilty coward.”

Edouard uttered an exclamation.

“Yes, Edouard, you shall not be miserable like me; she was guilty.  You do not understand me yet, my poor mother—­and she was so happy this morning—­I was the liar, the coward, the double-faced wife, the miserable mother that denied her child.  Now will you let me die?  Now do you see that I can’t and won’t live upon shame and despair?  Ah, Monsieur Raynal, my dear friend, you were always generous:  you will pity and kill me.  I have dishonored the name you gave me to keep:  I am neither Beaurepaire nor Raynal.  Do pray kill me, monsieur—­Jean, do pray release me from my life!”

And she crawled to his knees and embraced them, and kissed his hand, and pleaded more piteously for death, than others have begged for life.

Raynal stood like a rock:  he was pale, and drew his breath audibly, but not a word.  Then came a sight scarce less terrible than Josephine’s despair.  The baroness, looking and moving twenty years older than an hour before, tottered across the room to Raynal.

“Sir, you whom I have called my son, but whom I will never presume so to call again, I thought I had lived long enough never to have to blush again.  I loved you, monsieur.  I prayed every day for you.  But she who was my daughter was not of my mind.  Monsieur, I have never knelt but to God and to my king, and I kneel to you:  forgive us, sir, forgive us!”

She tried to go down on her knees.  He raised her with his strong arm, but he could not speak.  She turned on the others.

“So this is the secret you were hiding from me!  This secret has not killed you all.  Oh!  I shall not live under its shame so long as you have.  Chateau of Beaurepaire—­nest of treason, ingratitude, and immodesty—­I loathe you as much as once I loved you.  I will go and hide my head, and die elsewhere.”

“Stay, madame!” said he, in a voice whose depth and dignity was such that it seemed impossible to disobey it.  “It was sudden—­I was shaken—­but I am myself again.”