“How is Madame Mathieu?”
“Quite well, thank you.”
So the young woman with the large, tender eyes, whom we had just seen, was the wife of this repugnant and brutal rustic, whose jealousy seemed to emphasise his physical ugliness.
Slamming the door behind him, the innkeeper left the room. Mother Angenoux was still standing, leaning on her stick, the cat at her feet.
“You ’ve been ill, Mother Angenoux?—Is that why we have not seen you for the last week?” asked the Green Man.
“Yes, Monsieur keeper. I have been able to get up but three times, to go to pray to Sainte-Geneviève, our good patroness, and the rest of the time I have been lying on my bed. There was no one to care for me but the Bête du bon Dieu!”
“Did she not leave you?”
“Neither by day nor by night.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“As I am of Paradise.”