t she held him off.

"Leave me--listen; I still have so much to say to make you understand.
But you never can understand. You see, if I stayed--I must--no, no. I
cannot."

"Speak on, mother, speak."

"Yes, indeed, for at least I shall not have deceived you. You want me to
stay with you? For what--for us to be able to see each other, speak to
each other, meet at any hour of the day at home, for I no longer dare
open a door for fear of finding your brother behind it. If we are to do
that, you must not forgive me--nothing is so wounding as
forgiveness--but you must owe me no grudge for what I have done. You
must feel yourself strong enough, and so far unlike the rest of the
world, as to be able to say to yourself that you are not Roland's son
without blushing for the fact or despising me. I have suffered enough--I
have suffered too much; I can bear no more, no indeed, no more! And it
is not a thing of yesterday, mind you, but of long, long years. But you
could never understand that, how should you! If you and I are to live
together and kiss each other, my little Jean, you must believe that
though I was your father's mistress I was yet more truly his wife, his
real wife; that at the bottom of my heart, I cannot be ashamed of it;
that I have no regrets; that I love him still even in death; that I
shall always love him and never loved any other man; that he was my
life, my joy, my hope, my comfort, everything--everything in the world
to me for so long! Listen, my boy, before God, who hears me, I should
never have had a joy in my existence if I had not met him; never
anything--not a touch of tenderness or kindness, not one of those hours
which make us regret growing old,--nothing. I owe everything to him! I
had but him in the world, and you two boys, your brother and you. But
for you, all would have been empty, dark, and void as the night. I
should never have loved, or known, or cared for anything--I should not
even have wept--for I have wept, my little Jean; oh yes, and bitter
tears, since we came to Havre. I was his wholly and forever; for ten
years I was as much his wife as he was my husband before God who created
us for each other. And then I began to see that he loved me less. He was
always kind and courteous, but I was not what I had been to him. It was
all over! Oh, how I have cried! How dreadful and delusive life is!
Nothing lasts. Then we came here--I never saw him again; he never came.
He promised it in every lett