Remain ignorant as you are on the subject!" "Then he whom you love is related to me, as: you wish to hide his name even from me," said Madame Desvarennes with instinctive anguish.
She was silent.

Her eyes became fixed.

They looked without seeing.

She was thinking.
"I beseech you," cried Jeanne, madly placing her hands before Madame Desvarennes's face as if to check her scrutiny.
"If I had a son," continued the mistress, "I would believe--" Suddenly she ceased speaking; she became pale, and bending toward Jeanne, she looked into her very soul.
"Is it--" she began.
"No! no!" interrupted Jeanne, terrified at seeing that the mistress had found out the truth.
"You deny it before I have pronounced the name ?" said Madame Desvarennes in a loud voice.

"You read it then on my lips?
Unhappy girl! The man whom you love is the husband of my daughter!" My daughter! The accent with which Madame Desvarennes pronounced the word "my" was full of tragical power.