"Tetrik!"
"Yes; he departed after a stay of a few days! Almost immediately after Tetrik's departure the silent hostility towards your son began, and has since steadily grown!"
Victoria looked at me in silence, as if she did not quite grasp the bearing of my words. But a sudden thought seeming to flash through her mind, she cried in a tone of reproach:
"What! You suspect Tetrik! My own relative and best friend, the wisest of men, one of the most enlightened citizens of our age, a man who seeks his delight in letters and displays no mean poetic talents! One of the most useful men in the defense of Gaul, although he is not a man of war! Tetrik, who in his government of Gascony repairs by dint of wisdom the evils that civil war inflicted upon the province! Oh, brother, I expected better things from your loyal heart and your good sense!"
"I suspect that man!"
"Oh, you iron-headed, inflexible nature! Why should you suspect Tetrik? By what right? What has he done? By Hesus! If you were not my brother—if I did not know your heart—I would think you are jealous of my esteem for my relative!"
Victoria had barely uttered these last words, when she seemed to regret having allowed them to escape her. She said:
"Forget these words!"
"They would greatly grieve me, sister, if the unjust doubt that they express could blind you to the truth."
At this moment the servant entered and asked whether Tetrik could be admitted.