But in the confessional, or at night, when praying, she wept often, imploring God's forgiveness for the apostasy of the man who thought the contrary of what he professed, and who desired the destruction of the aristocracy and the Church,--the two religions of the house of Cormon.
With all her feelings bruised and immolated within her, compelled by duty to make her husband happy, attached to him by a certain indefinable affection, born, perhaps, of habit, her life became one perpetual contradiction.

She had married a man whose conduct and opinions she hated, but whom she was bound to care for with dutiful tenderness.
Often she walked with the angels when du Bousquier ate her preserves or thought the dinner good.

She watched to see that his slightest wish was satisfied.

If he tore off the cover of his newspaper and left it on a table, instead of throwing it away, she would say:-- "Rene, leave that where it is; monsieur did not place it there without intention." If du Bousquier had a journey to take, she was anxious about his trunk, his linen; she took the most minute precautions for his material benefit.

If he went to Prebaudet, she consulted the barometer the evening before to know if the weather would be fine.