Madame thought it might be Fernande, or else Annette bringing her more food which she did not want, and impatiently she called: "Come in!"
The door was thrown open; she could see it from where she stood, and she turned, thinking that it must be Annette. The next moment she gave a cry:
"Laurent!"
She ran into the next room, her heart and mind suddenly assailed with a horrible foreboding. Laurent was standing on the threshold, pale, haggard, trembling visibly. His clothes were soiled, his boots muddy, his eyes looked dazed and feverish.
"Laurent, in the name of God, what has happened?" queried Denise de Mortain as calmly as she could, after she had dragged Laurent into the room and closed the door behind him.
He staggered to a chair and threw himself into it, in an obvious state of physical exhaustion.
"Where is Fernande?" were the first words which came to his lips.
"Fernande?" queried Madame with a frown. "I don't know. In her room, I think. But never mind about Fernande now. Tell me, in God's name, why you are here?"
"Fernande is not in her room," he retorted savagely, and, wearied though he so obviously was, he jumped up from his chair and stood facing his mother with hands clenched, eyes glowing and cheeks aflame. "Where is she?"
"I don't know," replied Madame as firmly and unconcernedly as she could. "She may be as impatient as I am and, unable to sit still, she may be wandering about somewhere in the house or round the gardens. I don't know, I tell you," she added fiercely. "Laurent, I insist upon knowing what your presence here means at this hour, when I thought you on the way to Domfront."