"For more than two years they have been mine—mine only. Dare to take them from me! I will not share them."
He stopped short, like a horse whose spirit is broken and whose gallop is suddenly brought to a standstill.
"I am unjust, Elizabeth!"
He spoke her name for the first time. In spite of her fear, she thrilled. He fell into an armchair beside a table on which he was leaning. His anger spent itself.
"Marie Louise is right. Nobody ever wished to give more happiness than I, and I spread suffering everywhere. It is a fatality. At least I am not happy. What shall I do? How should I know it? Elizabeth, it would be better that you should leave me, forget me, start your life anew."
She pushed the children towards him, but they obeyed her unwillingly. This confession of weakness was touching on the part of a man who had always extolled the importance of will power, the spirit of continuity and energy in both general and individual life. She felt it and wanted to hold out her arms to him; a secret instinct warned her not to show her tenderness yet.
"Oh," she murmured simply, "I am not one of those who begin life anew."
She had begun it over again, however, but in the same straight path. He pulled himself together with an effort to pay her homage.
"Yes, you have already; alone, you helped my mother; you have brought up our children alone. And I, I can do nothing for you but pity you."
This word separated them still farther.