"I can not be sufficiently humiliated upon earth, and Heaven will reject me, for I have been your accomplice." Perspiration appeared upon the forehead of Laubardemont, but he tried to recover his composure.

"What absurd tale is this, Sister; what has influenced you herein ?" The voice of the girl became sepulchral; she collected all her strength, pressed her hand upon her heart as if she desired to stay its throbbing, and, looking at Urbain Grandier, answered, "Love." A shudder ran through the assembly.

Urbain, who since he had fainted had remained with his head hanging down as if dead, slowly raised his eyes toward her, and returned entirely to life only to undergo a fresh sorrow.

The young penitent continued: "Yes, the love which he rejected, which he never fully knew, which I have breathed in his discourses, which my eyes drew in from his celestial countenance, which his very counsels against it have increased.
"Yes, Urbain is pure as an angel, but good as a man who has loved.

I knew not that he had loved! It is you," she said more energetically, pointing to Lactantius, Barre, and Mignon, and changing her passionate accents for those of indignation--"it is you who told me that he loved; you, who this morning have too cruelly avenged me by killing my rival with a word.