"Monsieur, none of this—"

"Oh, Gabrielle," he said, falling to his knees and reaching out for my hand. His gesture took me by surprise. I held my breath, but my heart continued to pound like rain in a storm drain. "I want you to understand everything. Only then will you perhaps find some small place in your heart for an infinitesimal amount of forgiveness."

He swallowed hard and then continued. "Gladys and I don't sleep together because making love for her is too painful. She just lies there and whimpers. Can you imagine what that is like for me? I'd like to be a real husband and sire children with her as I should, but she makes it so difficult."

"Why tell me, a stranger? Why not bring her to a doctor, monsieur?" I asked in my same hard, sharp voice. I had used all my power of pity for Mama and myself. I certainly had nothing left for him, the man whose lust had shut me up in this tiny room.

"Because a doctor can't help her unless he can wipe away years of horrid childhood memories," he blurted.

I felt a wave of blood flow up my neck and pulled my hand back from his.

"I do not understand, monsieur," I said, even though the dark thoughts had been lingering in the corners of my mind from the day I had discovered the strange drawings in the closet and the damaged dolls. These thoughts were so horrid and frightening to me, I kept them smothered.

"Gladys's father used her . . . sexually, when she was just a little girl," he said, and I gasped. "I realized something was wrong from the first day after we had been married. In order to postpone our consummation of the marriage, she secretly had one of her laborers butcher a pig and put some of the blood into a small bottle, which she brought along on our honeymoon and then used to pretend she had gotten her period. One afternoon, toward the end of our week, I found the bottle buried in a drawer. When I confronted her with it, she broke down and cried and babbled some of the past.

"Naturally, I was horrified. Her father was a well-respected and important man, a man I personally admired. He had brought me into the business and treated me like a son from the first day forward. It was he who arranged for my courting of Gladys, and although she was somewhat aloof from my advances, I thought it was only because of her shyness. She had never had a boyfriend before me, really.

"So I was willing to give it time, and when our marriage was arranged, I thought we would surely learn to love each other and things would be fine. When I discovered her past, I confronted her father, who, as you might know, had been suffering from emphysema for some time. It had grown very serious. He could barely get around and spent most of his time confined in bed, hooked to an oxygen tank. It looked like an umbilical cord and he shriveled until he appeared no more than a baby. I was running the business already."

"What happened after you confronted him?" I asked, unable to prevent myself from being interested in his story even though apart of me abhorred the details.

"He denied everything, of course, and told me Gladys had always been a fanciful child who actually believed her own imaginings. He begged me not to give up on her, however, claiming I was the only hope she had for a normal life."

"You believed him?"

"I didn't know what to believe. It didn't seem to make any difference whether or not it was true. The result was the same. Gladys was, as one psychiatrist I conferred with told me, impotent. He said he had seen other similar cases in which a woman's psychological condition actually affected her ability to get pregnant. He called it mind over matter. "Oh, I forced myself on her a number of times, hoping to break through this wall of frigidity, but it has, until now, proven impenetrable. Can you understand what it has been like for me to live under such conditions?

"I had made promises to her father and accepted her and the holy sacrament of marriage, but . . . I am only a man with a man's needs and weaknesses.

"I know," he said quickly, "that is no excuse for what I have done to you, and it's laughable for me to even suggest you forgive me because of it, but I wanted you to understand that I am not an evil person and I do suffer remorse." He lowered his head.

"You denied it when my father first came to you," I. reminded him,

"Who would have admitted such a thing to Jack Landry? He looked like he would tear my arms out and rip off my head. I was terrified. I know his reputation. Don't think my legs weren't quaking under that desk when you and your father burst into my office and I tried to frighten him with my own threats.

"I know you have no reason to believe this now, but I was preparing to send you money to help you with your pregnancy and with the child. I was going to do it anonymously. I never expected your father would go to Gladys, and as you remember, I was quite surprised by her reaction and decision.

"Well," he said, sitting back, "that's the whole truth. Now you know it and perhaps you won't hate me as much as you did."

"How much I hate you isn't what matters," I said, and then I added in a softer voice, "I don't hate you. Mama always says hate is like a small fire kindled in your soul; it eventually burns away all the goodness and consumes you in its rage."

"She's right and you're very sweet to tell me that. That's what's made this so terrible, your goodness." He smiled. "Really, is there anything I can do for you? Something I could bring you?"

"No, monsieur."

He stared at me and smiled. "I wish I had been born years later and met a girl like you first," he said.

"But my father doesn't own a big cannery," I reminded him.

His smile widened. "You're a very clever girl besides being a very beautiful one, for someone who claims she hasn't been with men very much," he said. "Tell me the truth now. There were others, weren't there?"

"I have told you the truth and I don't care what you believe about me, monsieur."

He smiled as if to humor me and then he looked around, remaining on the floor at my feet. "It has to have been very lonely for you here, n'est-ce pas?"

"Oui, monsieur."

"You miss your friends, I'm sure."

"I miss my mother and my freedom to go where I want when I want."

"I'm sorry. Really, there must be something else I can do for you," he insisted. Then he rose and sat beside me. "I know. I could visit you more often," he suggested. "Amuse you, comfort you. You're a lovely girl. You shouldn't be so alone. It's not fair."

"I'll endure it. As you said, it's not for much longer." I shifted on the bed so I wouldn't be sitting so close to him.

"Yes, but as you said, every day is like a week, every week a month, a month a year, when you're so locked up and without company. We can play checkers or just talk, and I can comfort you with my shower of affection whenever you need it. Pregnant women need affection, even more than women who aren't pregnant, no?"

He reached across my lap and took my hand into his. I started to pull back, but he held on to me.

"You needn't worry now. The damage, as they say, has already been done. You can't get any more pregnant. You won't have twins," he added with a laugh.

"Please, monsieur." I pulled my hand from his, but he took it again, pressing firmer, more desperately.

"Gabrielle, I'm lonely, too. It's not just for you that I make the suggestion."

"Monsieur Tate . . ."

"Pregnancy does make a woman even more beautiful," he said. "Here you are locked away in this closet, shut away from the sunlight you love so, and yet you still bloom with a freshness and a radiance that makes my heart skip beats."

"I don't feel fresh and radiant."

"But you are," he insisted. "These past months I've lain in my bed and stared up at the ceiling thinking about you closed up in this room. I go into Gladys's bedroom to hear every movement, every squeak, and a few times," he confessed, "I've watched you from a distance or from the shadows and admired you for what you are doing for your parents and for the baby."

"I do what must be done," I said, my voice weak because of the way my heart thumped with fear and anxiety, imagining him hovering below listening for a squeak in the ceiling.

"Your courage takes away my breath and in my eyes makes you more beautiful. If you will only let me give you real comfort," he said, and leaned toward me to kiss my cheek, his hands moving up the sides of my body toward my breasts.

Surprised and terrified, I put my hand on his chest and held him away. "Get out, monsieur. Now!" He hesitated. "I will scream. I warn you." My throat tightened, but he saw the determination in my eyes.

"All right," he said, standing and pumping his palms against the air between us. "Stay calm. Relax. I'll go. I just thought you needed some comfort and . . ."

"I don't want you here," I said, tears burning beneath my eyelids. "I don't want this kind of comfort."

"Okay. Fine. But what I'll do is look in on you from time to time to see if you are all right."

"No, don't bother."

"It's not a bother."

"Monsieur," I said firmly, swallowing back my tears to make my words sharp and firm, "if you set foot in this room again, I will complain to Madam Tate and I will leave this house. I swear I will."

He shook his head. "Where do you get your strength?"

"From my sense of what is right," I replied pointedly. He was silent and then he retreated to the doorway where he paused once more to look back at me. He sighed deeply and shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said, and descended the stairs quietly.

I waited until I heard the downstairs door close. Then I let out a breath and felt my tears pour hotly over my lids and down my cheeks. Now that he was gone, I was filled with amazement. How could he come up here and, pretending to be remorseful, try to seduce me again? Madame Tate was right, I thought, men must have raging hormones that turn them into monsters. Had he no shame?