'You think poor Simon guilty?'
'Why, there is no doubt of it! The reasons you give for asserting his innocence repose on no foundation whatever! I should like you to hear the persons whose purity of life you dare to suspect! And as you fall into such gross error respecting a case in which everything is so evident, a case which is settled beyond possibility of appeal, how can I place the slightest faith in your other notions, your fanciful social system, in which you begin by suppressing religion?'
He had taken her in his arms again, and was holding her in a tight embrace. Ah! she was right. Their slowly increasing rupture had originated in their divergence of views on that question of truth and justice, in reference to which others had managed to poison her understanding. 'Listen, Geneviève,' he said; 'there is only one truth, one justice. You must listen to me, and our agreement will restore our peace.'
'No, no!'
'But, Geneviève, you must not remain in such darkness when I see light all around me; it would mean separation forever.'
'No, no, let me be! You tire me; I won't even listen.'
She wrenched herself from his embrace and turned her back upon him. He vainly sought to clasp her again, kissing her and whispering gentle words; she would not move, she would not even answer. A chill swept down on the conjugal couch, and the room seemed black as ink, dolorously lifeless, as if the misfortune which was coming had already annihilated everything.
From that time forward Geneviève became more nervous and ill-tempered. Much less consideration was now shown for her husband at her grandmother's house; he was attacked in her presence in an artfully graduated manner, as by degrees her affection for him was seen to decline. Little by little he became a public malefactor, one of the damned, a slayer of the God she worshipped. And the rebellion to which she was thus urged re-echoed in her home in bitter words, in an increase of discomfort and coldness. Fresh quarrels arose at intervals, usually at night, when they retired to rest, for in the daytime they saw little of each other, Marc then being busy with his boys and Geneviève being constantly absent, now at church, now at her grandmother's. Thus their life was gradually quite spoilt. The young woman showed herself more and more aggressive, while her husband, so tolerant by nature, in his turn ended by manifesting irritation.
'My darling, I shall want you to-morrow during afternoon lessons,' he said one evening.
'To-morrow? I can't come,' she replied; 'Abbé Quandieu will be expecting me. Besides, you need not rely on me for anything.'