"Here is the coffee at last," she said. "I made it fresh. And I have brought some brioches. Will you sit up and have the tray on your knees?"
"Thank you!" said Ste. Marie. "I do not wish anything."
"You do not——" she repeated after him. "But I have made the coffee especially for you!" she protested. "I thought you wanted it. I don't understand."
With a sudden movement the man turned towards her a white and drawn face.
"Mademoiselle!" he cried, "it would have been more merciful to let your gardener shoot again yesterday. Much more merciful, mademoiselle." She stared at him under her straight black brows.
"What do you mean?" she demanded. "More merciful? What do you mean by that?" Ste. Marie stretched out a pointing finger and the girl followed it. She gave, after a tense instant, a single sharp scream. And upon that—
"No! no! It's not true. It's not possible." Moving stiffly she set down the bowl she carried, and the hot liquid splashed up round her wrists. For a moment she hung there, drooping, holding herself up by the strength of her hands upon the table. It was as if she had been seized with faintness. Then she sprang to where the cat crouched beside a chair. She dropped upon her knees and tried to raise it in her arms, but the beast bit and scratched at her feebly, and crept away to a little distance, where it lay struggling and very unpleasant to see.
"Poison!" she said in a choked gasping whisper. "Poison!" She looked once towards the man upon the bed, and she was white and shivering.
"It's not true!" she cried again. "I—won't believe it. It's because the cat—was not used to coffee. Because it was hot. I won't believe it. I won't believe it." She began to sob, holding her hands over her white face.
Ste. Marie watched her with puzzled eyes. If this was acting, it was very very good acting. A little glimmer of hope began to burn in him—hope that in this last shameful thing, at least, the girl had had no part.