"In the name of the good God, Joseph," she said, "tell me what is the matter?"
"Who were those villains who came here to-night, Marianne?" asked the Chouan, answering one question by asking another.
"No one came here," she replied, shaking her head to give force to her denial. Then she added, "Joseph, have you seen your brother?"
"Who persuaded him away from home?" continued the Chouan, still questioning, and making no reply.
"No one, I tell you. He left home about four o'clock to go to La Logerie and pay the mayor for that buckwheat he bought for you last week."
"The mayor of La Logerie?" said Joseph Picaut, frowning. "Yes, yes! Maître Courtin. A bold villain, he! Many's the time I've told Pascal,--and this very morning I repeated it,--'Don't tempt the God you deny, or some harm will happen to you.'"
"Joseph! Joseph!" cried Marianne; "how dare you mingle the name of God with words of hatred against your brother who loves you so, you and yours, that he'd take the bread out of his own mouth to give it to your children! If an evil fate brings civil war into the land that's no reason why you should bring it into our home. Good God! Keep your own opinions and let Pascal keep his. His are inoffensive, but yours are not. His gun stays hooked over the fireplace, he meddles with no intrigues, and threatens no party; whereas, for the last six months there has not been a day you haven't gone out armed to the teeth, and sworn evil to the townspeople, of whom my father is one, and even to my family itself."
"Better go out with a musket and face the villains than betray those among whom you live, like a coward, and guide another army of Blues into the midst of us, that they may pillage the château of those who have kept the faith."
"Who has guided the Blues?"
"Pascal."