"What good would have been done by that order?" said Babette.
"What good?" cried Pierre. "Is there no good in atoning fora crime, or in saving a fair name from shame? Are you losing your wits, Babette?"
"Alas! no, unfortunately!" said the poor girl, weeping bitterly. "Those who lose their wits forget."
"Well, then," continued Pierre, "how, if you are in full possession of your reason, can you say that Monsieur d'Exmès has done right in not using his authority to compel your seducer to marry you?"
"To marry me! to marry me! Oh, how could he do so?" said Babette, in despair.
"What is to prevent him, pray?" exclaimed Jean and Pierre, with one voice.
Both had risen by an irresistible impulse. Babette fell upon her knees.
"Oh," she cried in her despair, "forgive me once more, dear brother! I wanted to conceal it from you. I concealed it even from my own heart! But now that you speak of our blighted honor, of France, and Monsieur d'Exmès, and unworthy Martin-Guerre, what can I do? Oh, my brain is in a whirl! You ask me if I am losing my wits. Truly I believe that I am. Come, you, who are calmer than I, tell me if I am mistaken, tell me if I was dreaming, or if what Monsieur d'Exmès told me was really true!"
"What Monsieur d'Exmès told you!" echoed Pierre, in alarm.
"Yes, in his room, the day of his departure, when I asked him to return the ring to Martin. I did not dare confess my fault to him, being a stranger. And yet he ought to have understood me; and if he did understand, how could he have told me?"