Thérèse murmured: “At Argelouse ... until I die....”
She went to the window and opened it. At that moment Bernard was really happy; this woman who had always intimidated and humiliated him, this evening he had her at his feet. How abject she must feel! His moderation made him feel quite pleased with himself. Madame de la Trave constantly told him he was a saint: the whole Family praised his noble character: and indeed he began for the first time to realise his own nobility of mind. When, with many precautions, Thérèse’s attempt on his life had been disclosed to him in the nursing-home, his self-possession, which had been so highly commended, had cost him but little effort. Nothing seems really serious to those who are incapable of love; because he was without love, Bernard had only felt the sort of tremulous joy that follows an escape from great danger: the sort of sensation a man might have who had been told that he has lived for years, without knowing it, in the company of a homicidal maniac. But that evening Bernard was conscious of his strength: he dominated life. He marvelled how every difficulty gives way before a clear and upright mind: even so soon after all this turmoil he was ready to maintain that “no one is ever unhappy except by his own fault.” See how he had dealt with the most appalling tragedy as if it had been the most ordinary matter of business. It would hardly be known: he would save his face: no one would sympathize with him any more, and he hated sympathy. There is nothing humiliating about having married a criminal when one has the last word. Besides, a bachelor life is no bad thing, and the proximity of death had marvellously increased in him his taste for landed property, shooting, motor-cars, and things to eat and drink;—for life, in short.
Thérèse remained standing before the window: she could catch a glimpse of white gravel, and smell the chrysanthemums, which were protected from the cattle by wire-netting. Beyond them a dark mass of oaks hid the pines: but the night was full of their resinous odour: like a hostile army, invisible but near at hand, Thérèse knew that they surrounded the house. These warders, whose muttered lamentations she could hear, would watch her wasting away through the winters, and gasping through the summer heats: they would be the witnesses of her slow strangulation. She shut the window once more and went up to Bernard.
“Do you think you will keep me here by force?”
“As you like ... but let me tell you this: you won’t leave this house except in handcuffs.”
“What nonsense! I know you: don’t make yourself out worse than you are. You will not expose the Family to such shame. You need not try to frighten me.” Whereupon, with the air of a man who has well weighed everything, he explained to her that to leave the house was to confess her guilt. In that case, the Family could only avert disgrace by amputating the diseased member, rejecting and disowning it in the face of the world.
“That was, in fact, the decision my mother wanted us to make, I may tell you. We were on the point of letting justice take its course; and if it had not been for Anne and Marie.... But there is still time. Do not give your answer in a hurry: I will give you till to-morrow morning.”
“I have my father still,” said Thérèse in a whisper.
“Your father? But we’re in entire agreement. He has his career, his politics, the ideas he stands for: his only thought is to hush up the scandal at whatever cost. You must realise what he has done for you: it was entirely due to him that the enquiry came to nothing. Besides, he must have made his express wishes known to you.... Hasn’t he?”
Bernard’s voice was no longer raised, he became almost courteous. It was not that he felt the slightest compassion. But this woman, whom he could not even hear breathing, was at last prostrate: she had found her true place. All was now in order. Another man’s peace of mind would not have survived such a blow: Bernard was proud to have made so successful a recovery: any one may be deceived; indeed everybody, for the matter of that, had been deceived by Thérèse, even Madame de la Trave, who was usually such a penetrating judge of character. The fact was that in these days people do not take sufficient account of principles: they no longer realise the dangers of an education, such as Thérèse had received; a perverted creature, no doubt; still, it is no use saying,—“if she had believed in God” ... fear is the beginning of wisdom.