Josephine's motherhood and the secret she was guarding were not the only things that were clouding his mental horizon now.

There was something else.
And he believed that Jean was the key to the situation.
He felt a clammy chill creep over him as he asked himself how closely Jean Jacques Croisset himself was associated with the girl he loved.

It was a thought that almost made him curse himself for giving it birth.
And yet it clung to him like a grim and haunting spectre that he would have crushed if he could.

Josephine's confession of motherhood had not made him love her less.

In those terrible moments when she had bared her soul to him, his own soul had suffered none of the revulsion with which he might have sympathized in others.