"Say no more about it, Babette; say no more about it," rejoined Jean, more moved than he cared to show. "I did very little indeed; and after all, the way to remedy your suffering was not to give you new cause for grief."
"So I finally realized," said Pierre. "Your repentance and your tears touched me too, Babette; my rage melted into pity, and my pity into tenderness; and I forgave you for staining our hitherto stainless name."
"Jesus will be merciful to you as you have been to me, my brother."
"Then, too," continued Pierre, "Jean reminded me that your misery might perhaps not be irreparable, and that he who had led you into error was bound legally and morally to extricate you from it."
Babette held her crimson face still lower. Singularly enough, when another than herself seemed to believe in the possibility of reparation, she herself lost all hope.
Pierre continued,—
"Despite that hope, which I welcomed with delight, of seeing your honor and ours re-established, Martin-Guerre has said never a word, and the messenger sent to Calais by Monsieur d'Exmès a month since brought no news of your seducer. But now the French are before our walls, I presume Vicomte d'Exmès and his squire are among them."
"You may be perfectly sure of that, Pierre," interposed Jean.
"I shall not contradict you, Jean. Let us assume that Monsieur d'Exmès and his squire are at this moment separated from us only by the walls and moats which protect us, or which protect the English, I should say. In that event, if we do see them again, Babette, how do you think that we ought to receive them,—as friends or foes?"
"Whatever you do will be well done, my brother," said Babette, in great alarm at the turn the conversation was taking.