It seemed as though something had been rent asunder within her; and she felt quite overcome, as if by the weight of a new truth of which she had hitherto been ignorant.

"Ah! it was cruel of you," she said, "to do me such violence so as to make me read my heart.

I swear to you again that I did not know I loved Pierre in the way you say.

But you have opened my heart, and roused what was quietly slumbering in it....

And it is true, I do love Pierre, I love him now as you have said.