“He is over-excited,” he said gravely. “And being still so weak, the news that he is to go to-morrow, I am afraid, has been too much for him. I have no doubt he was verging on hysteria when he laughed at you like that, Madame Lafleur.”
“I—I hope we shall not have any trouble with him,” said Madame Lafleur nervously. “I mean that I hope he won't be taken sick again. He did not look at the tray at all when I took it in; he kept his eyes on me all the time, as though he were trying to read something in my face.”
“Poor fellow!” murmured Raymond.
Madame Lafleur nodded her gray head in sympathetic assent.
“Ah, yes, Monsieur le Curé—the poor fellow!” she sighed. “It is a terrible thing that he has done; but it is also terrible to think of what he will have to face. Do you think it wrong, Monsieur le Curé, to wish almost that he might escape?”
Escape! Curse it—what was the matter with Madame Lafleur to-night? Or was it something the matter with himself?
“Not wrong, perhaps,” he said, smiling at her, “if you do not connive at it.”
“Oh, but, Monsieur le Curé!” she exclaimed reprovingly. “What a thing to say! But I would never do that! Still, it is all very sad, and I am heartily glad that I am not to be a witness at the trial like you and Valérie. And they say that Madame Blondin, and Monsieur Labbée, the station agent, and a lot of the villagers are to go too.”
“Yes, I believe so,” Raymond nodded.
Madame Lafleur, in quaint consternation, suddenly changed the subject.