"Do you remember the forest close to your home, how gloomy it was?" said she. "It seemed to me that it was full of horrible creatures, and that there was no end to it, while here it is delightful. One feels caresses in the breeze, and I know that Sevres lies on the other side of the wood."
He replied, "Oh! in the forest at home there was nothing but deer, foxes, and wild boars, and here and there the hut of a forester."
This word, akin to the dead man's name, issuing from his mouth, surprised him just as if some one had shouted it out to him from the depths of a thicket, and he became suddenly silent, assailed anew by the strange and persistent uneasiness, and gnawing, invincible, jealous irritation that had been spoiling his existence for some time past. After a minute or so, he asked: "Did you ever come here like this of an evening with Charles?"
"Yes, often," she answered.
And all of a sudden he was seized with a wish to return home, a nervous desire that gripped him at the heart. But the image of Forestier had returned to his mind and possessed and laid hold of him. He could no longer speak or think of anything else and said in a spiteful tone, "I say, Made?"
"Yes, dear."
"Did you ever cuckold poor Charles?"
She murmured disdainfully, "How stupid you are with your stock joke."
But he would not abandon the idea.
"Come, Made, dear, be frank and acknowledge it. You cuckolded him, eh? Come, admit that you cuckolded him?"