"Yes, yes; a last kiss--the last!"
"Never, my friend."
"Mary, it is to a dying man!"
Mary gave a cry; her lips touched his forehead; but the instant they had done so, and while she was closing the window hastily, Bertha appeared in the doorway.
When the latter saw her sister, pale, perturbed, scarcely able to support herself, she rushed, with the terrible instinct of jealousy, to the window, opened it violently, leaned out, and saw a shadow disappearing in the darkness.
"Michel was with you, Mary!" she cried, with trembling lips.
"Sister," said Mary, falling on her knees; "I swear--"
Bertha interrupted her.
"Don't swear, don't lie. I heard his voice."
Bertha pushed Mary away from her with such violence that the latter fell flat upon the floor. Then Bertha, springing over her sister's body, furious as a lioness deprived of her young, rushed from the room and down the stairs, crossed the mill, and reached the courtyard. There, to her astonishment, she saw Michel sitting on the doorstep beside Jean Oullier. She went straight up to him.