But Marsouillier, deeply regretting that he had added that particular, for he understood the possible gravity of any admission on his part, endeavoured to recall his words. 'I can't be sure of anything,' he said, 'it was like a growl.... And no, no, I should not be able to recognise him.'
Then, as Marc asked him for the handkerchief, he drew it from his pocket with some appearance of ennui, and laid it on a table. It was a very common kind of handkerchief, one of those which are embroidered by the gross with initials in red thread. This one was marked with the letter F, and the clue was a slight one, for dozens of similar handkerchiefs were sold in the shops.
Meantime Thérèse, who had again caught Rose in a gentle embrace, caressed her lovingly. 'The doctor is coming, my treasure,' she said. 'I won't touch you any more till he is here. It won't be anything. You are not in great pain, are you?'
'No, mother,' Rose replied, 'but my arm burns me and seems very heavy.'
Then, in an undertone, Thérèse, in her turn, tried to confess the girl, for the mysteriousness of the assault had left her very anxious. But at each fresh question Rose evinced yet greater alarm, and at last she closed her eyes and buried her head in the pillow, so as to see and hear nothing more. Every time her mother made a fresh attempt, begging her to say if she knew the man and would be able to recognise him, the child quivered dreadfully. But all at once, bursting into loud sobs, quite beside herself, almost delirious, she told everything in a loud, distressful voice, fancying, perhaps, that she was simply whispering her words in her mother's ear.
'Oh! mother, mother, I am so grieved! I recognised him—it was father who was waiting there, and who threw himself upon me!'
Thérèse sprang to her feet in stupefaction. 'Your father? What is it you say, you unhappy child?'
Marc and Marsouillier also had heard the girl. And the former drew near to her with a violent gesture of incredulity: 'Your father? It is impossible!... Come, come, my darling, you must have dreamt that.'
'No, no, father was waiting for me behind the school, and I recognised him by his beard and his hat. He tried to carry me away, and as I would not let him he twisted my arms and made me fall.'
She clung stubbornly to that account of the affair, though she could supply little proof of what she asserted, for the man had not spoken a word to her, and she had only noticed his beard and hat, remembering nothing else, not even his features, which had been hidden by the darkness. Nevertheless, that man was her father, she was sure of it; nothing could efface that impression, which, if incorrect, might be some haunting idea which had sprung from the grief in which she had seen her mother plunged since the departure of the unfaithful François.