Break! . . . She imagined to herself the family's stupefaction, the scandal. . . . That was nothing. . . . But Roger's grief. . . . Immediately she pictured to herself in the darkness the image of his beloved face. . . . At this vision a new surge of passion swept everything away. . . . Annette, burning and icy, motionless in her bed, upon her back, with her eyes open, suppressed the beatings of her heart. . . .
"Roger," she implored, "my Roger, forgive me! . . . Oh! If I could spare you this pain! . . . I cannot, I cannot! . . ."
Then she was bathed in such a flood of love and of remorse that she nearly went running to fling herself at the foot of Roger's bed, to kiss his hands, and say to him:
"I will do everything you wish. . . ."
What! She still loved him? . . . She rebelled. . . .
"No, no! I don't love him any more! . . ."
She lied to herself furiously. . . .
"I don't love him any more! . . ."
In vain! . . . She still loved him. She loved him more than ever. Perhaps not with the noblest part of her—(but what is noble, and what is not?)—Yes! with the noblest too, and with the least! Body and soul! . . . If one could only stop loving when one stopped respecting! How comfortable that would be! . . . But to suffer at the hands of the beloved has never exempted one from loving him: one feels it only the more cruelly when one is forced to love him! . . . Annette was suffering in her wounded love—from lack of confidence, lack of faith in herself, lack of Roger's profound love. She was suffering from the bitter consciousness of all the destroyed hopes which she had hatched and which would never see the light of day. It was because she loved Roger so ardently that she insisted on making him accept her independence. She wanted to be to him more than a woman who abdicates, passive in the union,—a free and sure companion. He took no stock in it. She felt within herself a sorrow, an anger of offended passion. . . .
"No! no! I love him no longer! I ought not to, I don't want to. . . ."