"What do you mean?"
"She spent it out of her house."
"She? the night out of her house?"
"Yes, her husband thrust her outdoors, half naked, this bitter cold night."
David shuddered through his whole body, then pressing both hands to his forehead as if to restrain the violence of his thoughts, he said to the doctor, in a broken voice:
"Wait, Pierre; I have heard your words, but I do not understand their import. A cloud seems to be passing over my mind."
"At first, neither did I understand it, my friend; it was too monstrous. Marguerite, yesterday evening, a little while after leaving her mistress, heard a long conversation, sometimes in a low voice, sometimes with violence, in the library, then walking in the corridor; then the noise of a door which opened and shut, then nothing more. In the night, after the departure of M. Bastien, Marguerite, rung up by her mistress, thought at first Marie had fainted, but later, by certain indications, she had the proof that her mistress had been compelled to stay from midnight until three o'clock, in the porch, exposed to all the severity of this freezing night. So, this sickness, mortal perhaps—"
"But it is a murder!" cried David, mad with grief and rage. "That man is an assassin!"
"The wretch was drunk as Marguerite has told me; it was in consequence of an altercation with the unhappy woman that he thrust her outdoors."
"Pierre, this man will return presently; he has insulted me grossly twice; I intend to provoke him and kill him."