"No," said the abbot.

But she went on, "It is by nature commanded to my husband not to draw
from his wealth to bring about his poverty, as the old women say by
the way."

"Then," replied the priest, "you must live virtuously and abstain from
all thoughts of this kind."

"But I have heard it professed by the Lady of Jallanges, that it was
not a sin when from it one derived neither profit nor pleasure."

"There always is pleasure," said the abbot, "but don't count upon the
child as a profit. Now fix this in your understanding, that it will
always be a mortal sin before God and a crime before men to bring
forth a child through the embraces of a man to whom one is not
ecclesiastically married. Thus those women who offend against the holy
laws of marriage, suffer great penalties in the other world, are in
the power of horrible monsters with sharp and tearing claws, who
thrust them into flaming furnaces in remembrance of the fact that here
below they have warmed their hearts a little more than was lawful."

Thereupon Blanche scratched her ear, and having thought to herself for
a little while, she said to the priest, "How then did the Virgin
Mary?"

"Ah!" replied abbot, "that it is a mystery."

"And what is a mystery?"