"I will live with you no longer," resolutely replied Madam Desmarais. "A hundred times rather die!"
"Once would suffice, worthy wife! And it would be good riddance to a most abominable burden."
"Come, mother," said Charlotte, wroth at her father's brutal language. "Come. You shall not remain here another instant."
"Your mother shall stop where she is," cried the lawyer threateningly. "As for you, my daughter—as for you, my son-in-law—I shall denounce your execrable complot to my friends of the mad-men's party, to Hebert, to James Roux the disfrocked priest, to Varlet. Get you hence—I drive you from my house." Then seizing his wife by the arm, Desmarais added, "But not you. You stay!"
"You will please to allow my mother full control over her own actions, Citizen Desmarais," said Lebrenn calmly, and mastering his indignation. "Unhand her!"
"Get out of here, scoundrel!" retorted the attorney, still holding his wife by the wrist. "Get out of here, at once!"
"For the last time, Citizen Desmarais," quoth John Lebrenn. "Allow Madam Desmarais to follow her daughter, as is her desire. My patience is at an end, and I can not much longer tolerate the brutality I see here."
"Would you have the boldness to raise your hand against me, wretch!" replied the advocate, foaming with rage, and roughly wrenching his wife's arm. "Malediction on you both."
"Aye, I shall succor your wife from your wretched treatment," John answered; and seizing the lawyer's wrist with his iron hand as if in a vise, he forced the attorney to release his almost fainting spouse. She, on her part, made all haste to leave the now intolerable presence of her husband, and, supported by Charlotte, disappeared into the next room.
As John left the parlor to rejoin his bride and his second mother, advocate Desmarais, hiding his face in his hands, sank into an arm-chair, crying: