“Then it’s because he’s mad. . . .”
“I don’t think he is mad: he is revenging himself.”
“Impossible. He was my father’s friend. All his life long he worked to bring us together: surely he would not kill us deliberately?”
“I don’t know, Patrice, I don’t understand. . . .”
They discussed it no further. It was of no importance whether their death was caused by this one or that one. It was death itself that they had to fight, without troubling who had set it loose against them. And what could they do to ward it off?
“You agree, do you not?” asked Coralie, in a low voice.
He made no answer.
“I shall not go,” she went on, “but I want you to be of one mind with me. I entreat you. It tortures me to think that you are suffering more than I do. You must let me bear my share. Tell me that you agree.”
“Yes,” he said, “I agree.”
“My own Patrice! Now give me your two hands, look right into my eyes and smile.”