Denoisel came every day to Briche to inquire about Renée. When she was a
little better, he was surprised that she did not ask for him. He had
always been accustomed to seeing her when she was not well, even when
she was lying down, as though he had been one of the family. And
whenever she had been ill, he was always one of the first she had asked
for. She expected him to entertain and amuse her, to enliven her during
her convalescence and bring back her laughter. He was offended and kept
away for a day or two, and then when he came again he still could not
see her. One day he was told that she was too tired, another day that
the Abbé Blampoix was talking to her. Finally, at the end of a week, he
was allowed to see her.
He expected an effusive welcome, such as invalids give their friends
when they see them again for the first time. He thought that after an
illness she would, in her impulsive way, be almost ready to embrace him.
Renée held out her hand to him and just let her fingers lie in his for a
second; she said a few words such as she might have said to any one,
and after about a quarter of an hour closed her eyes as though she were
sleepy. This coldness, which he could not understand in the least,
irritated Denoisel and made him feel bitter. He was deeply hurt and
humiliated, as his affection for Renée was pure and sincere and of such
long standing. He tried to imagine what she could possibly have against
him, and wondered whether M. Barousse had been instilling his ideas into
her. Was she blaming him, as a witness of the duel, for her brother's
death? Just about this time one of his friends who had a yacht at Cannes
invited him for a cruise in the Mediterranean, and he accepted the
invitation and went away at once.
Renée was afraid of Denoisel. She only remembered the commencement of
the attack that she had had in his presence, that terrible moment which
had been followed by her fall and a fit of hysterics. She had had a
sensation of being suffocated by her brother's blood, and she knew that
a cry had come to her lips. She did not know whether she had spoken,
whether her secret had escaped her while she was unconscious. Had she
told Denoisel that she had killed Henri, that it was she who had sent
that newspaper? Had she confessed her crime?
When Denoisel entered her room she imagined that he knew all. The
embarrassment which he felt and which was the effect of her manner to
him, his coldness, which was entirely due to her own, all this
confirmed her in her idea, in her certainty that she had spoken and that
it was a judge who was there with her.
Before Denoisel's visit was over, her mother got up to go out of the
room a minute, but Renée clung to her with a look of terror and insisted
on her staying. It occurred to her that she might defend herself by
saying that it was a fatality; that by sending the newspaper she had
only meant to make the man put in his claim; that she had wanted to
prevent her brother from getting this name and to make him break off his
engagement; but then she would have been obliged to say why she had
wished to do this--why she had wished to ruin her brother's future and
prevent him from becoming a rich man. She would have had to confess all;
and the bare idea of defending herself in such a way, even in the eyes
of the man she respected more than any other, horrified and disgusted
her. It seemed to her that the least she could do would be to leave to
the one she had killed his fair fame and the silence of death.
She breathed freely when she heard of Denoisel's departure, for it
seemed to her, then, as though her secret were her own once more.