Marthe, who was dressing with feverish haste, thereupon declared that she would walk to Plassans rather than stay the night at Les Tulettes. Her uncle seemed to be thinking. He had locked the door and slipped the key into his pocket. He entreated his niece, threatened her, and invented all kinds of stories to induce her to remain. But she paid no attention to what he said, and finished by putting on her bonnet.
'You are very much mistaken if you imagine you can persuade her to give in,' exclaimed Rose, who was quietly finishing her cheese. 'She would get out through the window first. You had better put your horse to the trap.'
After a short interval of silence, Macquart, shrugging his shoulders, angrily exclaimed:
'Well, it makes no difference to me! Let her lay herself up if she likes! I was only thinking about her own good. Come along; what will happen will happen. I'll drive you over.'
Marthe had to be carried to the gig; she was trembling violently with fever. Her uncle threw an old cloak over her shoulders. Then he gave a cluck with his tongue and set off.
'It's no trouble to me,' he said, 'to go over to Plassans this evening; on the contrary, indeed, there's always some amusement to be had there.'
It was about ten o'clock. In the sky, heavy with rain clouds, there was a ruddy glimmer that cast a feeble light upon the road. All the way as they drove along Macquart kept bending forward and glancing at the ditches and the hedges. When Rose asked him what he was looking for, he replied that some wolves had come down from the ravines of La Seille. He had quite recovered his good humour. However, when they were between two and three miles from Plassans the rain began to fall. It poured down, cold and pelting. Then Macquart began to swear, and Rose would have liked to beat her mistress, who was moaning underneath the cloak. When at last they reached Plassans the rain had ceased, and the sky was blue again.
'Are you going to the Rue Balande?' asked Macquart.
'Why, of course,' replied Rose in astonishment.
Macquart thereupon began to explain that as Marthe seemed to him to be very ill, he had thought it might perhaps be better to take her to her mother's. After much hesitation, however, he consented to stop his horse at the Mourets' house. Marthe had not even thought of bringing a latchkey with her. Rose, however, fortunately had her own in her pocket, but when she tried to open the door it would not move. The Trouches had shot the bolts inside. She rapped upon it with her fist, but without rousing any other answer than a dull echo in the hall.