"Beside what? Let me know!"
"No. Oh, no! It is too horrible!"
"Christian, what have you in mind?"
"Leave me! Leave me!" but immediately regretting the involuntary rudeness, the artisan took Bridget's hands in his own, and said to her in a deeply moved voice: "Excuse me, poor, dear wife. You see, when I think of this affair I lose my head. When, at the printing shop, to-day, the horrible suspicion flashed through my mind, I feared it would drive me crazy! I struggled against it all I could—but a minute ago, as I was running over with you our intimate acquaintances who might be thought guilty of the theft, the frightful suspicion recurred to me. That is the reason of my distress."
Christian threw himself down again upon his stool; again a shudder ran over his frame and he hid his face between his hands.
"Tell me, my friend, what is the suspicion that assails you and that you so violently resist? Impart it to me, I pray you."
After a painful struggle with himself that lasted several minutes, the artisan murmured in a faint voice as if every word burnt his lips:
"Like myself, you noticed, recently—since about the time of Odelin's departure for Milan—you noticed, like myself, that a marked change has been coming over the nature and the habits of Hervé."
"Our son!" cried Bridget stupefied; and she added: "Mercy! Would you suspect him of so infamous an act?"
Christian remained steeped in a gloomy silence that Bridget, distracted with grief as she was, did not at first venture to disturb. Presently she proceeded: