“Not a bad suggestion, Bert,” she said. “I must look after myself, you know. It would be a pity, wouldn’t it, for people to say that Julie’s mother was hanged?”
She spoke with a sneer. She had not forgotten that Bert had used those words to her, nor forgiven him. She was not afraid to let him see that his guess at her intentions was a good one; she felt for him a contempt too complete and profound to dread anything he might say or do.
It is a common failing among clever rascals to despise their dupes, but they often learn to their cost that danger may come from the most unlikely quarter.
The derisive note in her voice was the last straw on Bert’s frayed nerves. His rage took hold of him so that he no longer knew what he was about; he became a tool in other hands than Madame Querterot’s.
“Oh you fiend, you fiend!” he cried, and his voice was high and cracked, “hanging would be too good for a devil like you! You needn’t be afraid, people never shall say that of Joolie’s mother. You would have let her be hanged, you devil! Her and me, both of us. Oh—oh——”
The air was full of the murmur of the sea. It mingled with a maddening noise that buzzed in his ears and made thought impossible. A mist gathered before his eyes—a dreadful red mist in which everything swam and danced.
He bounded upon the woman, holding his hands outstretched before his face as though to fend off something unspeakably hideous and terrifying. Then they closed upon her throat and, with a sob, he shook her to and fro as a dog shakes a rat that has bitten it badly.
At last his rage spent itself. As it passed he became conscious of what he was doing, and with an exclamation of disgust loosened his grip.
She fell backwards, with a crash, across the open lid of the box she had been packing. The hinges snapped under the impact and the lid broke off and dropped to the floor with her. There she lay, head downwards, in an untidy heap, one arm twisted at a curious angle under her body.