Rose still retained bitter feelings against her mistress. Ever since the latter had been lying there dying she had paced round the bed, angrily knocking about the cups and the hot-water bottles.
'Was there any sense in doing such a thing as madame did?' she cried. 'She has only herself to blame if she has got her death by going to see the master. And now everything is turned topsy-turvy and we are all distracted. No, no; I don't approve at all of the little fellow being startled out of his sleep in such a way.'
In the end, however, she consented to go to the Seminary. Doctor Porquier had stretched himself out in front of the fire, and with half-closed eyes continued to address consolatory words to Madame Rougon. A slight rattling sound began to be heard in Marthe's chest. Uncle Macquart, who had not appeared again since he had gone away two good hours previously, now gently pushed the door open.
'Where have you been?' Félicité asked him, taking him into a corner of the room.
He told her that he had been to put his horse and trap up at The Three Pigeons. But his eyes sparkled so vividly, and there was such a look of diabolical cunning about him, that she was filled with a thousand suspicions. She forgot her dying daughter for the moment, for she scented some trickery which it was imperative for her to get to the bottom of.
'Anyone would imagine that you had been following and playing the spy upon somebody,' she said, looking at his muddy trousers. 'You are hiding something from me, Macquart. It is not right of you. We have always treated you very well.'
'Oh, very well, indeed!' sniggered Macquart. 'I'm glad you've told me so. Rougon is a skinflint. He treated me like the lowest of the low in the matter of that cornfield. Where is Rougon? Snoozing comfortably in his bed, eh? It's little he cares for all the trouble one takes about the family.'
The smile which accompanied these last words greatly disquieted Félicité. She looked him keenly in the face.
'What trouble have you taken for the family?' she asked. 'Do you grudge having brought poor Marthe back from Les Tulettes? I tell you again that all that business has a very suspicious look. I have been questioning Rose, and it seems to me that you wanted to come straight here. It surprises me that you did not knock more loudly in the Rue Balande; they would have come and opened the door. I'm not saying this because I don't want my dear child to be here; I am glad to think, on the contrary, that she will, at any rate, die among her own people, and will have only loving faces about her.'
Macquart seemed greatly surprised at this speech, and interrupted her by saying with an uneasy manner: