"Now, my excellent uncle," he said in the boldest and most stinging tone he had yet adopted with him, "you should be satisfied, indeed; you have killed Madame d'Estrelle!"
"Killed her?" said his uncle, turning abruptly upon him. "What infernal nonsense is that?"
"The nonsense would consist in taking her joy and her gratitude seriously, and you surely are not capable of that. That woman is in despair, she is dying of grief."
"You lie, you are dodging the question! She is still a little angry, she is sick on account of the way I have thwarted her lately; but in reality she is making the best of it, and while she may be chafing at her bit, she sees well enough that I am saving her in spite of her."
"You save her from the chances of the future, it is true, and you take the surest means to do it, by depriving her of life."
"Well, well, there's another dodge! She caught cold passing the nights in the garden with her lover! And then she was bored to death in that convent at Chaillot, and even more in that barrack at Nanterre, where she was absolutely alone! You see that it was no use for her to hide, I know every place she has been to. I never lost track of her. You can't fool me! I saw the convent doctor: he told me that she had a streak of melancholy in her disposition, but that she had no serious disease. I have seen her Paris doctor too; he says that he knows nothing about her sickness. If it was anything serious he'd know what it was, deuce take it! I know; she's angry; people don't die of that, and now she'll get better, I give you my word."
"And I," said Marcel, "give you my word that, with another week of the despair in which you are plunging her deeper and deeper, she will be lost beyond recall."
"Oho! so she loves that young dauber of canvas very dearly, does she? How about him, does he still think of her?"
"Julien's as badly off as she is, and in quite as alarming a frame of mind. I determined to make sure of it; I forced a confession from him with much difficulty, for he is not a man to complain. As for her, two whole months have passed and I haven't succeeded in extorting a word from her. To-day, I determined to force her to the wall; I succeeded, and now my mind is made up."
"To what? what do you propose to do?"