"What you say has upset me. I don't rightly understand. But I am beginning to see…. Then, you yourself…."
"I have been through all these torments."
"Is it possible?… But, even so, you will never make me believe that you would have done the same as that woman."
"I have no child, Christophe. I do not know what I should have done in her place."
"No. That is impossible. I believe in you. I respect you too much. I swear that you could not."
"Swear nothing! I have been very near doing what she has done…. It hurts me to destroy the good idea you had of me. But you must learn to know us a little if you do not want to be unjust. Yes, I have been within an ace of just such an act of folly. And you yourself had something to do with my not going on with it. It was two years ago. I was going through a period of terrible depression, that seemed to be eating my life away. I kept on telling myself that I was no use in the world, that nobody needed me, that even my husband could do without me, that I had lived for nothing…. I was on the very point of running away, to do Heaven knows what! I went up to your room…. Do you remember?… You did not understand why I came. I came to say good-bye to you…. And then, I don't know what happened, I can't remember exactly … but I know that something you said … (though you had no idea of it….) … was like a flash of light to me…. Perhaps it was not what you said…. Perhaps it was only a matter of opportunity; at that moment the least thing was enough to make or mar me…. When I left you I went back to my own room, locked myself in, and wept the whole day through…. I was better after that: the crisis had passed."
"And now," asked Christophe, "you are sorry?"
"Now?" she said. "Ah! If I had been so mad as to do it I should have been at the bottom of the Seine long ago. I could not have borne the shame of it, and the injury I should have done to my poor husband."
"Then you are happy?"
"Yes. As happy as one can be in this life. It is so rare for two people to understand each other, and respect each other, and know that they are sure of each other, not merely with a simple lover's belief, which is often an illusion, but as the result of years passed together, gray, dull, commonplace years even—especially with the memory of the dangers through which they have passed together. And as they grow older their trust grows greater and finer."