“Well, well!” said Lousteau, dragging Dinah along.
Pamela concluded that the lady must be some relation; however, she added:
“The key is in the door; your mother-in-law is there.”
In his agitation, while Madame de la Baudraye was pouring out a flood of words, Etienne understood the child to say, “Mother is there,” the only circumstance that suggested itself as possible, and he went in.
Felicie and her mother, who were by this time in the bed-room, crept into a corner on seeing Etienne enter with a woman.
“At last, Etienne, my dearest, I am yours for life!” cried Dinah, throwing her arms round his neck, and clasping him closely, while he took the key from the outside of the door. “Life is a perpetual anguish to me in that house at Anzy. I could bear it no longer; and when the time came for me to proclaim my happiness—well, I had not the courage.—Here I am, your wife with your child! And you have not written to me; you have left me two months without a line.”
“But, Dinah, you place me in the greatest difficulty—”
“Do you love me?”
“How can I do otherwise than love you?—But would you not have been wiser to remain at Sancerre?—I am in the most abject poverty, and I fear to drag you into it—”
“Your misery will be paradise to me. I only ask to live here, never to go out—”