“Would that all the world were here to see me!” said Jeanne de Belfiel, firm as ever. “I can not be sufficiently humiliated upon earth, and Heaven will reject me, for I have been your accomplice.”
Perspiration appeared upon the forehead of Laubardemont, but he tried to recover his composure. “What absurd tale is this, Sister; what has influenced you herein?”
The voice of the girl became sepulchral; she collected all her strength, pressed her hand upon her heart as if she desired to stay its throbbing, and, looking at Urbain Grandier, answered, “Love.”
A shudder ran through the assembly. Urbain, who since he had fainted had remained with his head hanging down as if dead, slowly raised his eyes toward her, and returned entirely to life only to undergo a fresh sorrow. The young penitent continued:
“Yes, the love which he rejected, which he never fully knew, which I have breathed in his discourses, which my eyes drew in from his celestial countenance, which his very counsels against it have increased.
“Yes, Urbain is pure as an angel, but good as a man who has loved. I knew not that he had loved! It is you,” she said more energetically, pointing to Lactantius, Barre, and Mignon, and changing her passionate accents for those of indignation—“it is you who told me that he loved; you, who this morning have too cruelly avenged me by killing my rival with a word. Alas, I only sought to separate them! It was a crime; but, by my mother, I am an Italian! I burned with love, with jealousy; you allowed me to see Urbain, to have him as a friend, to see him daily.” She was silent for a moment, then exclaimed, “People, he is innocent! Martyr, pardon me, I embrace thy feet!”
She prostrated herself before Urbain and burst into a torrent of tears.
Urbain raised his closely bound hands, and giving her his benediction, said, gently:
“Go, Sister; I pardon thee in the name of Him whom I shall soon see. I have before said to you, and you now see, that the passions work much evil, unless we seek to turn them toward heaven.”
The blood rose a second time to Laubardemont’s forehead. “Miscreant!” he exclaimed, “darest thou pronounce the words of the Church?”