Still, she would have overcome her repugnance (so tormented was she by the desire of another child) if she could have seen any way to bring about the intimacy she desired; but she would have died rather than let her husband guess what was in her thoughts, and he never seemed to dream of approaching her now. Perhaps she would have given up the idea had not each night the vision of a daughter playing with Paul under the plane tree appeared to her. Sometimes she felt she must get up and join her husband in his room; twice, in fact, she did glide to his door, but each time she came back, without having turned the handle, her face burning with shame.
The baron was away, her mother was dead, and she had no one to whom she could confide this delicate secret. She made up her mind, at last, to tell the Abbé Picot her difficulty, under the seal of confession. She went to him one day and found him in his little garden, reading his breviary among the fruit trees. She talked to him for a few minutes about one thing and another, then, "Monsieur l'abbé, I want to confess," she said, with a deep blush.
He put on his spectacles to look at her better, for the request astonished him. "I don't think you can have any very heavy sins on your conscience," he said, with a smile.
"No, but I want to ask your advice on a subject so—so painful to enter upon, that I dare not talk about it in an ordinary way," she replied, feeling very confused.
He put on his priestly air immediately.
"Very well, my daughter, come to the confessional, and I will hear you there."
But she suddenly felt a scruple at talking of such things in the quietness of an empty church.
"No, Monsieur le curé—after all—if you will let me—I can tell you here what I want to say. See, we will go and sit in your little arbor over there."
As they walked slowly over to the arbor she tried to find the words in which she could best begin her confidence. They sat down, and she commenced, as if she were confessing, "My father," then hesitated, said again, "My father," then stopped altogether, too ashamed to continue.
The priest crossed his hands over his stomach and waited for her to go on. "Well, my daughter," he said, perceiving her embarrassment, "you seem afraid to say what it is; come now, be brave."