She started up and stammered:
'I thought you would be back much earlier than this. I fell asleep. I dare say Rose will have got some tea ready.'
The priest called for the cook and rated her for not having made her mistress go to bed. He spoke in authoritative tones that admitted of no reply.
'Bring the tea for his reverence, Rose,' said Marthe.
'No, I don't want any tea,' the priest said with a show of vexation. 'Go to bed immediately. It is absurd. I can scarcely control myself. Show me a light, Rose.'
The cook went with him as far as the foot of the staircase.
'Your reverence knows that I am not to blame,' she said. 'Madame is very strange. Ill as she is, she can't stop for a single hour in her room. She can't keep from coming and going up and down, and fidgetting about merely for the sake of being on the move. She puts me out quite as much as anyone else; she is always in my way, preventing me from getting on with anything. Then she drops down on a chair and sits staring in front of her with a terrified look, as though she could see something horrible. I told her half a score of times at least, to-night, that you would be very angry with her for not going to bed; but she didn't even seem to hear what I said.'
The priest went upstairs without replying. As he passed the Trouches' room he stretched out his arm as though he was going to bang his fist on the door. But the singing had stopped, and he could tell from the sounds within that the visitors were about to take their departure, so he quickly stepped into his own room. Almost immediately afterwards Trouche went downstairs with a couple of men whom he had picked up in some low café, crying out on the staircase that he knew how to behave himself and was going to see them home. Olympe leant over the banisters.
'You can fasten the doors,' she said to Rose. 'He won't be back before to-morrow morning.'
Rose, from whom she had not been able to conceal her husband's misconduct, expressed much pity for her, and growled as she fastened the doors: