"He must go away without delay, eh? And it is you, braving everything,
without a thought of the trouble you leave behind you, who come to warn
him? Ah! you mean to go with him?"

Jeanne hesitated a moment. Then, boldly and impudently, defying and
almost threatening the legitimate wife:

"Well, yes, I wish to! Enough of dissimulation! I love him!" she
exclaimed.

Micheline, transfigured by passion, strong, and ready for a struggle,
threw herself in Jeanne's way, with arms outstretched, as if to prevent
her going to Serge.

"Well!" she said; "try to take him from me!"

"Take him from you!" answered Jeanne, laughing like a mad woman. "To whom
does he most belong? To the woman who was as ignorant of his love as she
was of his danger; who could do nothing toward his happiness, and can do
nothing for his safety? Or to the mistress who has sacrificed her honor
to please him and risks her safety to save him?"

"Ah! wretch!" cried Micheline, "to invoke your infamy as a right!"

"Which of us has taken him from the other?" continued Jeanne, forgetting
respect, modesty, everything. "Do you know that he loved me before he
married you? Do you know that he abandoned me for you--for your money, I
should say? Now, do you wish to weigh what I have suffered with what you
suffer? Shall we make out a balance-sheet of our tears? Then, you will be
able to tell which of us he has loved more, and to whom he really