“What a singular meeting!” she said.
Marius bowed.
“You know Lucienne?”
What she meant by that he understood perfectly. “Lucienne is my sister, madame,” he said coldly.
She shrugged her shoulders. “What humbug!”
“It’s the truth,” affirmed Mlle. Lucienne; “and you know that I never lie.”
Mme. Zelie was dumbfounded.
“If you say so,” she muttered. “But no matter: that’s queer.”
M. de Tregars interrupted her with a gesture,
“And, what’s more, it is because Lucienne is my sister that you see her there lying upon that bed. They attempted to murder her to-day!”