“How should you? All this goes on while you make your paper wreaths, and think of nothing else.”
“Oh, Claire, how cruel you are!” sobbed her sister. “You know I care for dear Léon as much as you—”
“Then you hate him!” interjected Claire. “I have never before heard of a seigneur of Poissy who was a thief. Every one will point at us—at us!”
“I do not think it can be possible,” said Félicie, drying her eyes, and mechanically trying to smooth out her damaged roses. Claire stood and stared at her; then flung herself away, and betook herself again to her passionate pacing. “No, I do not believe it, because you are always so violent when anything puts you out. What does mamma say? There is sure to be a mistake, for Léon has been so kind about the bishop that I am certain he could not have done the dreadful things you talk about. I dare say if he consults his Grandeur that he will give him some—”
She stopped. Claire had caught her wrists.
“If you speak about it to a soul, I shall kill you, Félicie. Do you hear!”
“Pray, be quiet, Claire!” whimpered the other; “it is very wrong to be so violent, and whether we tell him or not, I am sure the bishop will bring us a blessing. You will see that things will come right.”
“Oh, go away, go away!” cried her sister, pushing her. “Leave me in peace!”
“Perhaps it will be a lesson to Nathalie. I always felt afraid that some punishment would come to her for reading those books,” said Félicie, gathering up the last remains of her wreath and departing.
As her paroxysm of anger burned out into duller ashes of misery, Claire, at war with her sister, turned shudderingly towards Nathalie. She found herself wondering how the dreadful story affected her—what her intellect counselled. Suddenly she admitted her strength, and thought it possible that by her help means of extrication might be contrived. It might be he had not told her, from some weak notion of sparing her; Claire set her face like a rock against such mercy. From her she should know everything. Like an indomitable fate she walked towards her sister-in-law’s room, and there, as has been seen, found her unconscious on the floor. Nature forced her to go to her help, but as she knelt down she was full of contempt; for her own constitution was iron, and she held a collapse such as this a proof of miserable weakness. She read in it that Nathalie would never rise to the occasion, would suffer and make others suffer, and her own thoughts flew to plans for shielding Léon, or, at worst, of helping him to avoid the scandal.