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" was full of tragical power. It revealed the mother capable of doing anything to defend the happiness of the child whom she adored. Serge had calculated well. Between Jeanne and Micheline, Madame Desvarennes would not hesitate. She would have allowed the world to crumble away to make of its ruins a shelter where her daughter would be joyous and happy.