s; I have known it this
month past. Your feelings are touched now, but when that is over, when
you look on me as Pierre does, when you remember what I have told
you--oh, my Jean, think--think--I am your mother!"

"I will not let you leave me, mother. I have no one but you."

"But think, my son, we can never see each other again without both of
us blushing, without my feeling that I must die of shame, without my
eyes falling before yours."

"But it is not so mother."

"Yes, yes, yes, it is so! Oh, I have understood all your poor
brother's struggles, believe me! All--from the very first day. Now
when I hear his step in the house my heart beats as if it would burst,
when I hear his voice I am ready to faint. I still had you; now I have
you no longer. Oh, my little Jean! Do you think I could live between
you two?"

"Yes, I should love you so much that you would cease to think of it."

"As if that were possible!"

"But it is possible!"

"How do you suppose that I could cease to think of it, with your
brother and you on each hand? Would you cease to think of it, I ask
you?"

"I? I swear I should."

"Why you would think of it at every hour of the day."

"No, I swear it. Besides, listen, if you go away I will enlist and get
killed."

This boyish threat quite overcame her; she clasped Jean in a
passionate and tender embrace. He went on:

"I love you more than you think--ah much more, much more. Come, be
reasonable. Try to stay for only one week. Will you promise me one
week? You cannot refuse me that?"

She laid her two hands on Jean's shoulders, and holding him at arm's
length she said:

"My child, let us try and be calm and not give way to emotions. First,
listen to me. If I were ever to hear from your lips what I have heard
for this month past from your brother, if I were once to see in your
eyes what I read in his, if I could fancy from a word or a look that I
was as odious to you as I am to him--within one hour, mark me--within
one hour I should be gone forever."

"Mother, I swear to you--"

"Let me speak. For a month past I have suffered all that any creature
can suffer. From the moment when I perceived that your brother, my
other son, suspected me, that as the minutes went by, he guessed the
truth, every moment of my life has been a martyrdom which no words
could tell you."

Her voice was so full of woe that the contagion of her misery brought
the tears to Jean's eyes.

He tried to kiss her, bu