He struggled to continue, but she prevented him, trying to drown his words.
"I am sure you are mistaken.... Leonard is mistaken.... It is certain.... I should have known.... If it were he ... I should have known!"
"No! You could not have known. You yourself said so just now. Why should they account to you for their actions? It is he ... he and no other!"
And Olivier then gave her minutely every detail as the gardener had told it to him. How one of the agents had conferred with Robespierre after the arrest, at the Carrefour de la Chèvre, where he was enjoying a picnic.
Ah! Clarisse needed no such explanations. It was he, she knew it too well. But how was she to persuade Olivier to the contrary? How prevent the son from cursing his father?
She tried to excuse Robespierre, attributing to him other motives.
"You see," she said, "he doesn't know who we are.... He is mistaken.... His agents have misled him.... There could be so many misunderstandings...."
Olivier shrugged his shoulders.
"How credulous you are! Bah! he knows very well what he is doing! It is his thirst for blood. Oh! you don't half know what he is, that Rob...."
Clarisse, horror-stricken, put her fingers to his lips, to arrest the words.