Her grandmother's very rings seemed to flash hostility at her as she stretched out her hand and deliberately dropped the letter into the little fire which, despite the summer weather, burnt on the hearth beside her. "No, he is not," she replied curtly, "and therefore I think I have a right to know why you are, as I say, keeping him out of his own house just when he most needs a home and the care he can get there."
The thrust told. Avoye dropped her head. "I never meant to drive him away," she repeated.
"Nonsense," said Mme de la Rocheterie. "Do not pretend that you are ignorant of what you are doing where Aymar is concerned. You know only too well! Ever since your marriage you have been his evil genius—ever since you left your husband I have had to stand by and watch you slowly ruining his life. All I could do to enable me to bear the sight was to tell myself that a day would possibly come when you could repair the suffering you had caused him. That day has come . . . and how do you act? You choose the moment when he is ill, in straits of some kind—do you think I am so blind as not to know that?—to turn on him and——"
"Please stop!" said Avoye, trembling a little. "There is no need for you to say that again. I will leave Sessignes myself—at once—and then Aymar can come back."
Mme de la Rocheterie gave a short laugh. "As if that would put matters right! You know that he is besotted over you! If he comes back and finds you gone, I shall only have another scene . . . and I am getting too old for scenes. . . . But, for all that, ma fille, you are mistaken in thinking that you can play fast and loose with him like this!"
"Please tell me where he is?" asked Avoye humbly.
"There was no address. He is moving about, he says . . . on affairs. He is well fitted in health for that just now, is he not?—I ask once more, Avoye, on what grounds you drove him away?"
"I told you, Grand'mère, that we had a disagreement, which I regret very much."
"Is that an answer to my question?"
"I cannot answer it more explicitly."