Late one night she went to Chérie's room. She opened the door very gently so as not to wake her if she were asleep. But Chérie was sitting near the fire bending over some needlework and singing softly to herself. She jumped up, blushing deeply, as Louise entered, and she attempted to hide her work in her lap. It was an infant's white cape she was embroidering, and as Louise saw it her own pale cheeks flushed too.
"Chérie," she faltered, "I have been thinking ... what if we went home?"
"Yes," said Chérie quietly, with the chastened calmness of those whose mission it is to wait.
"Let us go, let us go," said Louise. "We will make our house ready and beautiful for those who will return."
"Yes," said Chérie, again.
"They will return and find us there ... waiting for them ... even though the storm has passed over us...." Her voice broke in a sob. "Mireille will recover, I know it, I feel it! And you—oh, Chérie!"—she dropped on her knees before the trembling girl—"you, you will be brave," she cried passionately, "before it is too late ... Chérie, Chérie, I implore you...."
Chérie was silent. It was as if she did not hear. It was as if she did not understand.
In vain Louise spoke of the shame of the past, of the woe and misery of the future. To all her wild words, to her caresses and entreaties, Chérie gave no reply. Her lips seemed mute, her eyes seemed distant and unseeing as those of the mindless, wandering Mireille.
At last she rose, and stood facing Louise, her face grave, inexorable, unflinching.
"Louise, say no more. No human reasoning, no human law, no human sanction or prohibition can influence me. No one may judge between a woman and the depths of her own body and soul; in so grave a matter each must decide according to her own conscience. What to the one is shame, hatred, and horror, to the other is joy, wonder, and love. To me, Louise, this suffering—tragic and terrible though it be—is joy, wonder, and love. I do not explain it, I do not justify it; I do not think I even understand it. But this I feel, that I would sooner tear out my living heart than voluntarily destroy the life which is within me, and which I feel is part of my very soul."