With a slight scream the terrified child fled from this prophetess of evil toward the sitting-room, where she heard the sound of high words.
She opened the door and hurried in.
And this was what she saw:
Her uncle standing on the corner of the hearth, with his elbow on the mantelpiece, his head leaning on his hand, whose fingers were clutched into his black hair; his starting black eyes staring down upon the floor; his black brows knitted, his teeth clenched, his face pallid with suppressed passion.
Her aunt, with her white dress and yellow hair in wild disorder, as if her own desperate hands had rent and torn them, was raging up and down the floor like a tigress in her cage, pouring forth all the gall and venom of her jealous fury, in words that might never be forgiven or forgotten.
Even the child intuitively perceived this, and feared that the man, stung to madness by the woman’s venomed tongue, might be driven to some rash act, fatal to them both.
She looked, shuddering, from one to the other.
It was terrible to see so fragile a creature as Eusebie in the power of such a tremendous passion, that seemed as if it must shrivel her frame as a cobweb in a flame. But it was more terrible to see in Marcel’s whole aspect the chained devil that might break loose in destroying frenzy at any moment. Full of fear and horror, the child crept trembling to the man’s side, put her arms around his waist, which she could just reach, looked up piteously in his face and whispered, in her coaxing tone:
“Uncle, uncle, uncle.”
“My little angel,” he murmured in reply, as his stern dark face softened and brightened.