The Count led the way to the room where his wife usually sat. She was
drowned in tears, and lay crouching in the depths of an armchair, as
if she were tired of life and longed to die. It was piteous to see
her. Before venturing to look at Rastignac, she glanced at her husband
in evident and abject terror that spoke of complete prostration of
body and mind; she seemed crushed by a tyranny both mental and
physical. The Count jerked his head towards her; she construed this as
a permission to speak.

"I heard all that you said, monsieur. Tell my father that if he knew
all he would forgive me. . . . I did not think there was such torture
in the world as this; it is more than I can endure, monsieur!--But I
will not give way as long as I live," she said, turning to her
husband. "I am a mother.--Tell my father that I have never sinned
against him in spite of appearances!" she cried aloud in her despair.

Eugene bowed to the husband and wife; he guessed the meaning of the
scene, and that this was a terrible crisis in the Countess' life. M.
de Restaud's manner had told him that his errand was a fruitless one;
he saw that Anastasie had no longer any liberty of action. He came
away mazed and bewildered, and hurried to Mme. de Nucingen. Delphine
was in bed.

"Poor dear Eugene, I am ill," she said. "I caught cold after the ball,
and I am afraid of pneumonia. I am waiting for the doctor to come."

"If you were at death's door," Eugene broke in, "you must be carried
somehow to your father. He is calling for you. If you could hear the
faintest of those cries, you would not feel ill any longer."