I cannot tell it. [Sits L.]
JEAN [stands]
Listen to me. It is necessary that at this moment there should not be between us the shadow of a misunderstanding. All our life depends upon it. You are my wife, but I admit that you are absolutely free after what has happened. I will do as you wish. I am ready to agree to everything you desire, even to a divorce if you demand it. But what will happen to me after that I do not know, for I love you so that the thought of losing you after winning you will throw me mercilessly into some desperate resolve. [Sees Gilberte moved.] I do not seek to soften you, to move you—I simply tell you the naked truth. I feel, and I have felt during the whole night, through all the shocks and horrible emotions of the drama that has just been enacted, that you hold for me the keenest wound. If you banish me now, I am a lost man.
GILBERTE [much moved]
Do you really love me as much as that?
JEAN
With a love that I feel is ineffaceable.
GILBERTE
Did you love her?
JEAN