I ought to have left him, run away, come home, oughtn't I? But I couldn't believe it of him all at once, like that I And I couldn't go away while I had any hope. . . . As long as I was holding to his arm it was as if I was engaged. When he was gone I should only be a miserable ruined girl, like dozens of others. . . . MY life was at stake: and to save myself I went down into the very lowest depths of vileness and cowardice. I cried, I implored. I lost all shame. . . . What he said then I cannot tell you - not even you - it was too much - too much - I did not understand at first. It was only afterwards, coming back, going over all his words, that I made out what he meant. . . . Then he rushed to the train, and jumped into a carriage, and almost crushed my fingers in the door; and he went and hid behind his mother, and she threatened, too, to have me arrested. . . . I wish I was dead! Lucie, dear, I don't want to go through all that's coming - I am too little - I am too weak, I'm too young to bear it. Really, I haven't the strength.
But Lucie has faith in her husband. In all the years of their married life she has heard him proclaim from the very housetops that motherhood is the most sacred function of woman; that the State needs large numbers; that commerce and the army require an increase of the population, and " the government commands you to further this end to the best of your ability, each one of you in his own commune." She has heard her husband repeat, over and over again, that the woman who refuses to abide by the command of God and the laws to
