"This Jacques Colis was to have wived thy daughter?" continued the châtelain, growing more wary as he thought he detected greater evidence of art in the accused.
"It was so understood between us."
"Did he love thy child?"
The muscles of Balthazar's mouth played convulsively, the twitching of the lip seeming to threaten a loss of self-command.
"Mein Herr, I believed it."
"Yet he refused to fulfil the engagement?"
"He did."
Even Marguerite was alarmed at the deep emphasis with which this answer was given, and, for the first time in her life, she trembled lest the accumulating load of obloquy had indeed been too strong for her husband's principles.
"Thou felt anger at his conduct, and at the public manner in which he disgraced thee and thine?"
"Herr Châtelain, I am human. When Jacques Colis repudiated my daughter, he bruised a tender plant in the girl, and he caused bitterness in a father's heart."