The speech was uttered with such incisive bitterness that the duchess,
enlightened by the tone and accent and look of her daughter, felt
certain there was some hidden trouble.

"My dears, it is midnight; come, go to bed," she said to Clotilde and
Athenais, whose eyes were shining.

"In spite of my thirty-five years I appear to be /de trop/," said
Clotilde, laughing. While Athenais kissed her mother, Clotilde leaned
over Sabine and said in her ear: "You will tell what it is? I'll dine
with you to-morrow. If my mother's conscience won't let her act, I--I
myself will get Calyste out of the hands of the infidels."

"Well, Sabine," said the duchess, taking her daughter into her
bedroom, "tell me, what new trouble is there, my child?"

"Mamma, I am lost!"

"But how?"

"I wanted to get the better of that horrible woman--I conquered for a
time--I am pregnant again--and Calyste loves her so that I foresee a
total abandonment. When she hears of it she will be furious. Ah! I
suffer such tortures that I cannot endure them long. I know when he is
going to her, I know it by his joy; and his peevishness tells me as
plainly when he leaves her. He no longer troubles himself to conceal
his feelings; I have become intolerable to him. She has an influence
over him as unhealthy as she is herself in soul and body. You'll see!
she will exact from him, as the price of forgiveness, my public