not free to marry? Yes, it must be that.
Some married man, perhaps! A scoundrel who did not mind breaking a young
girl's heart! Where had she met him? In society at her house in the Rue
Saint-Dominique, perhaps! Who could tell? He very likely still continued
to come there. At the thought Madame Desvarennes grew angry. She wished
to know the name of the man so that she might have an explanation with
him, and tell him what she thought of his base conduct. The gentleman
should have respectable, well-educated girls to trifle with, should he?
And he risked nothing! He should be shown to the door with all honors
due to his shameful conduct.

Jeanne was still weeping silently at Madame Desvarennes's knee. The
latter raised her head gently and wiped away the tears with her lace
pocket-handkerchief.

"Come, my child! all this deluge means nothing. You must make up your
mind. I can understand your hiding anything from your husband, but not
from me! What is your lover's name?"

This question so simply put, threw a faint light on Jeanne's troubled
brain. She saw the danger she was running. To speak before Madame
Desvarennes! To tell the name of him who had been false to her! To
her! Was it possible? In a moment she understood that she was about to
destroy Micheline and Serge. Her conscience revolted and she would
not. She raised herself and looking at Madame Desvarennes with still
frightened eyes,

"For pity's sake, forget my tears! Don't believe what my husband
has told you. Never seek to know. Remain ignorant as you are on the
subject!"

"Then he whom you love is related to me, as: you wish to hide his name
even from me," said Madame Desvarennes with instinctive anguish.

She was silent. Her eyes became fixed. They looked without seeing. She
was thinking.

"I beseech you," cried Jeanne, madly placing her hands before Madame
Desvarennes's face as if to check her scrutiny.

"If I had a son," continued the mistress, "I would believe--" Suddenly
she ceased speaking; she became pale, and bending toward Jeanne, she
looked into her very soul.

"Is it--" she began.

"No! no!" interrupted Jeanne, terrified at seeing that the mistress had
found out the truth.

"You deny it before I have pronounced the name?" said Madame Desvarennes
in a loud voice. "You read it then on my lips? Unhappy girl! The man
whom you love is the husband of my daughter!"

My daughter! The accent with which Madame Desvarennes pronounced the
word "my