“There is scarcely room for doubt,” said Fabien, meaningly.
With a swift impetuous impulse she crossed to where Max stood,—
“How can you let them say such things?” she said, passionately, her breathing short and quick. Poor Thérèse! she felt all a woman’s indignation and a woman’s powerlessness at once. “M. le Curé,” she cried, “how can you listen and not speak?” I think she dumbfounded them all for a minute. Nannon, who heard her voice, stopped her chanson to listen. Max, with a strange sweet pain in his heart, looked down at her and cared very little for Fabien’s rude speeches. After all, she was not powerless. Max looked at her and said, softly,—
“Such things do not hurt me.”
And at that moment there was a heavy step, a little fumbling at the door, and Madame Roulleau came in. Her face was so white and rigid that Fabien, who did not know her, exclaimed as if she were an apparition, and, indeed, the others were scarcely less startled. She came across the room, like a person walking in a dream, straight to where M. Deshoulières stood, and flung a key on the table, before him.
“There is what you want,” she said. “If I touch the papers they will scorch me.”
They all looked at one another. Thérèse, who was still trembling with excitement, put her hand on her arm. Madame Roulleau threw it off, keeping her eyes fixed on M. Deshoulières.
“Do you wish to know why I have come?” she went on. “Tenez, you can hear, then, all of you. My little Adolphe is dead—dead, do you understand?—dead of the fever; and my husband, who was frightened, has left him and me by ourselves. That is what husbands should do, is it not?” She spoke like a person in an agony; Thérèse shuddered. “Some one said M. Saint-Martin was here—it was either that sister or Adolphe, I do not know which. I can tell you all about it. We will begin from the beginning—that was at Ardron. M. Deshoulières, as you know, and my husband brought me home the letters which he found,—two letters from Rio Janeiro asking for money. I burned them. Burning is always safe. Two others came afterwards, and those I burned also. We wrote those answers that we had from Paris. Is that all? No, I remember. There was that appointment at Pont-huine, when you sent Ignace, but it was easy enough for him to stay away.”
“Unhappy woman,” said the curé, sternly, “what led you into all this wickedness?”
She did not answer him. She had her eyes still fixed upon M. Deshoulières, and she never looked aside.