"Don't talk to me like that, I beg you, or I will call my husband.
I feel only too guilty in not having sent you away before.
I pity you," she said to him, trying to wound his, as she well knew, irritable pride.
This refusal of all endearments, this abrupt way of breaking so tender a tie which he thought still subsisted, carried the transports of Julien's love to the point of delirium.
"What! is it possible you do not love me?" he said to her, with one of those accents that come straight from the heart and impose a severe strain on the cold equanimity of the listener.
She did not answer. As for him, he wept bitterly.
In fact he had no longer the strength to speak.
"So I am completely forgotten by the one being who ever loved me, what is the good of living on henceforth?"
As soon as he had no longer to fear the danger of meeting a man all his courage had left him; his heart now contained no emotion except that of love.
He wept for a long time in silence.
He took her hand; she tried to take it away, and after a few almost convulsive moments, surrendered it to him.
It was extremely dark; they were both sitting on Madame de Renal's bed.
"What a change from fourteen months ago," thought Julien, and his tears redoubled. "So absence is really bound to destroy all human sentiments."
"Deign to tell me what has happened to you?" Julien said at last.
"My follies," answered Madame de Renal in a hard voice whose frigid intonation contained in it a certain element of reproach, "were no doubt known in the town when you left, your conduct was so imprudent. Some time afterwards when I was in despair the venerable Chelan came to see me.
He tried in vain for a long time to obtain a confession.
One day he took me to that church at Dijon where I made my first communion.
In that place he ventured to speak himself——" Madame de Renal was interrupted by her tears. "What a moment of shame.
I confessed everything.
The good man was gracious enough not to overwhelm me with the weight of his indignation. He grieved with me.
During that time I used to write letters to you every day which I never ventured to send. I hid them carefully and when I was more than usually unhappy I shut myself up in my room and read over my letters."
"At last M. Chelan induced me to hand them over to him, some of them written a little more discreetly were sent to you, you never answered."
"I never received any letters from you, I swear!"
"Great heavens!
Who can have intercepted them?
Imagine my grief until the day I saw you in the cathedral. I did not know if you were still alive."
"God granted me the grace of understanding how much I was sinning towards Him, towards my children, towards my husband," went on Madame de Renal.
"He never loved me in the way that I then thought that you had loved me."
Julien rushed into her arms, as a matter of fact without any particular purpose and feeling quite beside himself.
But Madame de Renal repelled him and continued fairly firmly.
"My venerable friend, M. Chelan, made me understand that in marrying I had plighted all my affections, even those which I did not then know, and which I had never felt before a certain fatal attachment ... after the great sacrifice of the letters that were so dear to me, my life has flowed on, if not happily, at any rate calmly.
Do not disturb it. Be a friend to me, my best friend." Julien covered her hand with kisses. She perceived he was still crying.
"Do not cry, you pain me so much.
Tell me, in your turn, what you have been doing," Julien was unable to speak. "I want to know the life you lead at the seminary," she repeated. "And then you will go."
Without thinking about what he was saying Julien spoke of the numberless intrigues and jealousies which he had first encountered, and then of the great serenity of his life after he had been made a tutor.
"It was then," he added, "that after a long silence which was no doubt intended to make me realise what I see only too clearly to-day, that you no longer loved me and that I had become a matter of indifference to you...." Madame de Renal wrung her hands. "It was then that you sent me the sum of five hundred francs."
"Never," said Madame de Renal.
"It was a letter stamped Paris and signed Paul Sorel so as to avert suspicion."
There was a little discussion about how the letter could possibly have originated.
The psychological situation was altered.
Without knowing it Julien had abandoned his solemn tone; they were now once more on the footing of a tender affection.
It was so dark that they did not see each other but the tone of their voices was eloquent of everything.
Julien clasped his arm round his love's waist. This movement had its dangers.
She tried to put Julien's arms away from her; at this juncture he cleverly diverted her attention by an interesting detail in his story. The arm was practically forgotten and remained in its present position.
After many conjectures as to the origin of the five hundred francs letter, Julien took up his story. He regained a little of his self-control as he spoke of his past life, which compared with what he was now experiencing interested him so little.
His attention was now concentrated on the final outcome of of his visit.
"You will have to go," were the curt words he heard from time to time.
"What a disgrace for me if I am dismissed.
My remorse will embitter all my life," he said to himself, "she will never write to me. God knows when I shall come back to this part of the country."
From this moment Julien's heart became rapidly oblivious of all the heavenly delights of his present position.