with fright: "What have I said?" And also to the same appertained the
anger that carried him away when, 'a propos' of their religious marriage,
she spoke of confession: "Why do you think that I should be afraid to go
to confession?"

How could he imagine that she could admit the idea of fear in connection
with him? The idea never occurred to her mind until this moment; and if
now the memory of her astonishment came to her, it was because of other
little things added to those of the past that evoked it.

How numerous and significant they were, these things: his constant
uneasiness on seeing himself watched by her; his invitation when he
thought she was going to question him; his access of passion when,
through heedlessness or forgetfulness, or simply by chance, she asked him
a question on certain subjects, and immediately the tenderness that
followed, so sudden that they appeared rather planned in view of a
determined end than natural or spontaneous.

It was a long time before she admitted the calculation under the sweet
words that made her so happy; but in the end it was well that she should
open her eyes to the evidence, and see that they were with him the
consequences of the same and constant preoccupation, that of not
committing himself.

It was only one step from this to ask him what he did not wish to yield
up.

Yet, as short as it was, she resisted for a long time the curiosity that
possessed her. It was her duty as a loving and devoted wife not to seek
beyond what he showed her, and this duty was in perfect accord with the