“Say nothing of that, Thérèse. You should know better than to bring such subjects before a dying man.”
“Such subjects lie before the dead. Better to meet them prepared—atoned for, in as far as atonement is yet possible. For your own sake, and by my own right, I require to be told who destroyed my child?”
“I did not, Thérèse.”
“You did not! Is it possible? Yet in this hour you could not deceive me. I have accused you of the deed, from that hour to this. Is it possible that I have wronged you?”
“I do not say that I disapproved of it—that I did not allow it. But I did not do it.”
“Then you know who did it?”
“Of course I do.”
“Who was it?”
“I swore long ago that I would not tell; and I never will. But you may lay the blame on me, my dear; for, as I told you, I permitted the deed. It was necessary. Our lives depended on it.”
“May you not find your eternal death depend on it!” said Thérèse, agonised by suspicions as to whose hand it was by which her child had died. In a moment, she formed a resolve which she never broke—never again to seek to know that which Papalier now refused to tell. A glance at the countenance before her filled her with remorse the next instant, at what now seemed the cruel words she had just spoken.