"It is your duty to reveal it to me and my duty to
know it."
At last, conquered by this argument which I never tired of using in various and appealing forms, she consented. Oh, with what sadness!
Her home was in Liverdun. Her father was a physician and her mother, who led a frivolous life, had left her husband. As for Juliette, she had been placed in the home of the Sisters. Her father came home drunk every evening, and there were terrible scenes, for he was very ill-natured. The scandal grew to such proportions that the Sisters sent Juliette away, not wishing to keep the daughter of a wicked woman and a drunkard in their house. Ah, what a miserable life it was! Always locked up in her room and sometimes beaten by her father for no cause whatever! One night, very late, the father entered Juliette's room. "How shall I express it to you!" Juliette said blushing. "Oh, well, you understand. . . ." She jumped out of bed, shouted, opened the window. But the father was frightened and went away. The next morning Juliette left for Nancy, planning to live by working. It was here she had met Charles.
While she was talking in a gentle, even voice I took her hand, her beautiful hand which I pressed with feeling, at the sad points of the story. I was indignant over the action of her father. And I cursed the mother for abandoning her child. I felt the stirrings of a self-sacrificing devotion, and a vindictive desire to avenge her wrongs. When she had finished I wept with burning tears. . . . It was an exquisite hour.
Juliette received very few people; some of Malterre's friends, and two or three of Malterre's feminine friends. One of them, Gabrielle Bernier, a tall, pretty
