Placing one of her hands on her son's shoulder, she laid the other on his forehead, saying in a calm, perfectly calm, voice, and as if talking to herself:
"How hot his poor head is, and he is still delirious with fever! My God, oh, my God, how can I induce him to follow me?"
Frederick, amazed by his mother's words and her apparent tranquillity after the terrible confession he had just made, exclaimed:
"I am perfectly sane, I tell you, mother. It is you as much as myself that I wish to avenge, and my hatred, you see—"
"Yes, yes, my child, I know," interrupted Madame Bastien, too much terrified to notice Frederick's last words.
Then, kissing him on the forehead, she said, soothingly:
"Yes, yes, of course you have your senses, so come home with me; for it is getting late and we have been out in these woods a long time."
"The place suits me well enough and I shall come back again," answered Frederick, sullenly.
"Of course we will come back again, my child, but in order to do that we shall first have to go away."
"Don't exasperate me too much, mother."