"I don't believe in you, Barode Barouche. At least my husband did not go
from his hearthstone looking for what belonged to others. No--No--no;
however much I suffered, I understood that what he did not feel for me at
least he felt for no one else. To him, life was his business, and to the
long end business mastered his emotions. I have no faith in you! In the
depth of my soul something cries out: 'He is not true. His life is
false.' To leave me that was right, but, monsieur, not as you left me.
You pick the fruit and eat it and spit upon the ground the fibre and the
skin. I am no longer the slave of your false eloquence. It has nothing
in it for me now, nothing at all--nothing."

"Yet your son--has he naught of me? If your son has genius, I have the
right to say a part of it came from me. Why should you say that all
that's good in the boy is yours--that the boy, in all he does and says,
is yours! No--no. Your long years of suffering have hardened into
injustice and wrong."

Suddenly he touched her arm. "There are women as young as you were when
I wronged you, who would be my wife now--young, beautiful, buoyant; but I
come to you because I feel we might still have some years of happiness.
Together, where our boy's fate mattered, we two could help him on his
way. That is what I feel, my dear."

When he touched her arm she did not move, yet there was in his fingers
something which stirred ulcers long since healed and scarred. She
stepped back from him.

"Do not touch me. The past is buried for ever. There can be no
resurrection. I know what I should do, and I will do it. For the rest
of my life, I shall live for my son. I hope he will defeat you. I don't