I said that under such conditions I would rather not see my child, and that M. Chabrier had no authority whatever over her.... My mind was in a whirl.... Dr. Raffegeau begged me to admit M. Chabrier and take no notice.
I heard slow weary steps on the staircase.... Was Marthe ill?... She entered, pale, haggard, almost unrecognisable, the poor darling. My sister held her on one side; M. Chabrier on the other. Marthe was led to my bed, and then I saw in her face a strange expression which I had never before seen there. I stretched out my arms to her, but, pulled back by M. Chabrier, she retreated from me.... I lost all courage, all strength, all hope....
"What is the matter?... You are coming back to me, Marthe?"
My child tried to speak.
"She is ill, she cannot talk..." said Mme. Seyrig. "She has come to tell you.... Tell her yourself, Marthe... Try."...
"Yes," I said, "tell me yourself... everything... the whole truth."...
Marthe turned her tear-bedimmed eyes on M. Chabrier, who was standing near my bed facing her, and then in a hardly audible voice, she said, as though she were trying to repeat a lesson: "After all that has happened... you understand."... She stopped, muttered "I am stifling," caught her breath and added: "I have come to say good-bye to you for ever."...
For nearly two years I have heard those words, day after day, night after night, echoing in my mind, but at the time when they were spoken, I did not realise all that they meant.
"Are you going into a convent, then?" I asked.
"No."