The restlessness of his hands--recalling to my mind the gesture
with which he turned and returned his cane while my mother was
telling him of the disappearance of my father--yes, the
restlessness of his hands was extreme; but he had been working at
the fire with the same feverish eagerness just before. Silence had
fallen between us suddenly; but how often had the same thing
happened? Did it ever fail to happen when he and I were in each
other's company? And then, what could he have to say against the
outburst of my grief and wrath, orphan that I was? Guilty or
innocent, it was for him to be silent, and he held his peace. My
heart sank; but, at the same time, a senseless rage seized upon me.
At that moment I would have given my remaining life for the power
of forcing their secret from those shut lips, by any mode of
torture.
My stepfather looked at the clock--he, too, had risen now--and
said: "Shall I put you down anywhere? I have ordered the carriage
for three o'clock, as I have to be at the club at half-past.
There's a ballot coming off tomorrow." Instead of the down-
stricken criminal I had dreamed of, there stood before me a man of
society thinking about the affairs of his club. He came with me so
far as the hall, and took leave of me with a smile.
Why, then, a quarter of an hour afterwards, when we passed each
other on the quay, I going homeward on foot, he in his coupe--yes--
why was his face so transformed, so dark and tragic? He did not
see me. He was sitting back in the corner, and his clay-colored
face was thrown out by the green leather behind his head. His eyes
were looking--where, and at what? The vision of distress that
passed before me was so different from the smiling countenance of a
while ago that it shook me from head to foot with an extraordinary
emotion, and forced me to exclaim, as though frightened at my own
success:
"Have I struck home?"