“Who?”
“I don’t know. . . . The whole business is incomprehensible to me. . . . Don’t speak of it. . . . It all pains me. . . . I have suffered so since Coralie’s death!”
“Coralie!” exclaimed Patrice.
“Yes, the woman I loved. . . . As for little Coralie, I’ve suffered also on her account. . . . She ought not to have married Essarès.”
“Where is she?” asked Patrice, in agony.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Oh,” cried Patrice, shaking with rage, “you mean she’s dead!”
“No, she’s alive, I swear it.”
“Then where is she? That’s the only thing that matters. All the rest belongs to the past. But this thing, a woman’s life, Coralie’s life . . .”
“Listen.”