urgent with her to go and lie down on the bed in the inner room; but it
was some time before she was strong enough to rise and do this.

"When Madame Babette returned from arranging the girl comfortably, the
three relations sat down in silence; a silence which Pierre thought would
never be broken. He wanted his mother to ask his cousin what had
happened. But Madame Babette was afraid of her nephew, and thought it
more discreet to wait for such crumbs of intelligence as he might think
fit to throw to her. But, after she had twice reported Virginie to be
asleep, without a word being uttered in reply to her whispers by either
of her companions, Morin's powers of self-containment gave way.

"'It is hard!' he said.

"'What is hard?' asked Madame Babette, after she had paused for a time,
to enable him to add to, or to finish, his sentence, if he pleased.

"'It is hard for a man to love a woman as I do,' he went on--'I did not
seek to love her, it came upon me before I was aware--before I had ever
thought about it at all, I loved her better than all the world beside.
All my life, before I knew her, seems a dull blank. I neither know nor
care for what I did before then. And now there are just two lives before
me. Either I have her, or I have not. That is all: but that is
everything. And what can I do to make her have me? Tell me, aunt,' and
he caught at Madame Babette's arm, and gave it so sharp a shake, that she
half screamed out, Pierre said, and evidently grew alarmed at her
nephew's excitement.

"'Hush, Victor!' said she. 'There are other women in the world, if this
one will not have you.'