Superior never before has forgotten the modesty and severity of her
order."

"Would that all the world were here to see me!" said Jeanne de Belfiel,
firm as ever. "I can not be sufficiently humiliated upon earth,
and Heaven will reject me, for I have been your accomplice."

Perspiration appeared upon the forehead of Laubardemont, but he tried to
recover his composure. "What absurd tale is this, Sister; what has
influenced you herein?"

The voice of the girl became sepulchral; she collected all her strength,
pressed her hand upon her heart as if she desired to stay its throbbing,
and, looking at Urbain Grandier, answered, "Love."

A shudder ran through the assembly. Urbain, who since he had fainted had
remained with his head hanging down as if dead, slowly raised his eyes
toward her, and returned entirely to life only to undergo a fresh sorrow.
The young penitent continued:

"Yes, the love which he rejected, which he never fully knew, which I have
breathed in his discourses, which my eyes drew in from his celestial
countenance, which his very counsels against it have increased.

"Yes, Urbain is pure as an angel, but good as a man who has loved. I knew
not that he had loved! It is you," she said more energetically, pointing
to Lactantius, Barre, and Mignon, and changing her passionate accents for
those of indignation--"it is you who told me that he loved; you, who this
morning have too cruelly avenged me by killing my rival with a word.
Alas, I only sought to separate them! It was a crime; but, by my mother,