"How can you let them say such things?" she said, passionately, her
breathing short and quick. Poor Therese! she felt all a woman's
indignation and a woman's powerlessness at once. "M. le Cure," she
cried, "how can you listen and not speak?" I think she dumbfounded them
all for a minute. Nannon, who heard her voice, stopped her chanson to
listen. Max, with a strange sweet pain in his heart, looked down at her
and cared very little for Fabien's rude speeches. After all, she was
not powerless. Max looked at her and said, softly,--
"Such things do not hurt me."
And at that moment there was a heavy step, a little fumbling at the
door, and Madame Roulleau came in. Her face was so white and rigid that
Fabien, who did not know her, exclaimed as if she were an apparition,
and, indeed, the others were scarcely less startled. She came across
the room, like a person walking in a dream, straight to where M.
Deshoulieres stood, and flung a key on the table, before him.
"There is what you want," she said. "If I touch the papers they will
scorch me."
They all looked at one another. Therese, who was still trembling with
excitement, put her hand on her arm. Madame Roulleau threw it off,
keeping her eyes fixed on M. Deshoulieres.
"Do you wish to know why I have come?" she went on. "_Tenez_, you can
hear, then, all of you. My little Adolphe is dead--dead, do you
understand?--dead of the fever; and my husband, who was frightened, has
left him and me by ourselves. That is what husbands should do, is it
not?" She spoke like a person in an agony; Therese shuddered. "Some
one said M. Saint-Martin was here--it was either that sister or
Adolphe, I do not know which. I can tell you all about it. We will
begin from the beginning--that was at Ardron. M. Deshoulieres, as you
know, and my husband brought me home the letters which he found,--two
letters from Rio Janeiro asking for money. I burned them. Burning is
always safe. Two others came afterwards, and those I burned also. We
wrote those answers that we had from Paris. Is that all? No, I
remember. There was that appointment at Pont-huine, when you sent
Ignace, but it was easy enough for him to stay away."
"Unhappy woman," said the cure, sternly, "what led you into all this
wickedness?"
She did not answer him. She had her eyes still fixed upon M.
Deshoulieres, and she never looked aside.
"Ask her," said the cure.
"Why was this, Madame Roulleau?" said the doctor, sadly.
"We wanted the money," she answered at once; "the money you gave us for
the girl. And what Ignace had to do about it brought in money. We knew
it must all go again when M. Saint-Martin came home. Last night I said
to myself that I would tell you; I do not know why I came here; the
sister said something, I believe. She is staying with him." And then,
with a bitter cry which they never forgot, "He is dead--dead! I dared
not send for you, and you might have saved him." She went swiftly out
of the room, down the stairs, into the street. If they had wished to
stop her they could scarcely have done so; but they all stood dumb, that
last cry ringing in their ears.
"_Libera nos a malo_," said the cure, at last, under his breath.
"_Amen_."
He was a just man. Perhaps his prayer had not only to do with that poor
stricken woman who had gone out from them. Perhaps he was thinking also
of the evil of suspicions and accusations without cause. He was a just
man, but ungracious. He wanted to speak at once to M. Deshoulieres,
and the words would not come readily. Therese was looking shyly and
beseechingly at Fabien. Why did he not acknowledge the unconscious
wrong that he had done? Nobody spoke. It was Nannon who broke the
silence, coming in from the balcony.
"The saints preserve us! She has gone down the street as if there were
a mob at her heels."
"I may as well go and search for the will, I believe," said M.
Deshoulieres, turning round with a sigh. Therese still looked at
Fabien. Why did he not speak?
"M. Saint-Martin," said the cure, gravely, "I think there is a duty for
us to perform before we can allow M. Deshoulieres to leave us--a duty
and a reparation. My own share in the matter has been the heaviest. I
beg to offer him my most sincere apologies."
"It may or may not be, as this woman says," Fabien answered grudgingly;
"it does not explain it altogether to my mind. At all events it is
impossible to congratulate M. Deshoulieres upon his choice of a notary.
I shall make a point of having the rascal punished, and meanwhile may I
request you, monsieur, to do us the favour to fetch the will without
delay? The sooner one gets out of this hole the better."
"Allow me to repudiate M. St Martin's sentiments altogether," said the
cure, with a flush on his sallow cheek. "I beg to decline having any
thing to do with the reading of the papers connected with this--what I
may call--unfortunate will. It had better be delayed until the arrival
of the lawyer."
"You desert me, in fact, Monsieur le Cure," said Fabien, crossly.
"I leave you in good hands, as you must be aware," said the cure, who,
having been mistaken himself, felt a degree of satisfaction in snubbing
the young man. "Nothing that I can say can atone for the pain we have
unintentionally inflicted upon M. Deshoulieres, and all that remains is
a matter of form."
"Will you not consent to meet us here to-morrow at the same time?"
"On the contrary, immediately that I have been to the Eveche, I shall
return to Ardron. Are you coming my way, M. Deshoulieres?"
They all went down the stairs together--the cure, the doctor, Fabien
looking discontented, Therese, and Nannon. Therese lingered a moment to
say in an undertone,--
"Fabien, why do you not acknowledge that you have wronged him!"
"Wronged him, bah! The only person wronged is myself. Therese, you
used to take my part."
It was the first allusion, on his part, to other days. A little earlier
in the interview it would have touched her more. Now it gave her
something of the old sense of compassion for his weakness; but that was
not the feeling that could bring her back. Her heart had always
revolted against injustice; it revolted now doubly, trebly. She was
frightened at herself; frightened at the way in which the love she had
been clinging to all this time was melting away. In the midst of her
pain and indignation and pity, it gave her a strange unreal feeling.
There is often a strange medley in our hearts on those days which we
call crises in our lives. The lesser things subside, and we forget all
but the most prominent; but at the time the oddest emotions hustle one
another. Therese was puzzled at herself; at the change that seemed to
have come over her since that morning. And then she found herself
curiously watching the little procession that went down the stairs,--the
cure in his flowing black cassock and his wide beaver hat; M.
Deshoulieres and Fabien, so unlike each other; Nannon, with her broad
shoulders and her heavily plaited green gown--it seemed as if all the
characters in her little drama were trooping down together. Monsieur
Deshoulieres was the victor, who was going away in triumph, but there
was not much triumph in his heart just then. At the door they
separated.
"Adieu, Therese," said Fabien, with his hand on the door of the
_salle-a-manger_.
"Adieu, Fabien."
"If you come to Paris at any time let me know. Do not allow the
provinces to engross you altogether. Or if you have need of any
thing--"
"I have need of nothing."
"In that case, _au revoir_."
He wanted to punish her. His nature was too small to bear the
humiliation of allowing himself to be in the wrong. He was in a rage
with them all, and he wanted to punish her. He only stung her. And the
others had passed out, so that they heard nothing.