"Why not? Do you think I'm going to disown my father as you did?"
"Vorski's son! His son!" Véronique repeated.
"Lord bless me, yes, his son: why shouldn't I be? Surely the good fellow had the right to have two sons! Me first and dear François next!"
"Vorski's son!" Véronique exclaimed once more.
"And one of the best, I tell you, ma'am, a worthy son of his father and brought up on the highest principles. I've shown you as much already, haven't I? But it's not finished, we're only at the beginning . . . . Here, would you like me to give you a fresh proof? Just take a squint at that stick-in-the-mud of a tutor! . . . No, but look how things go when I take a hand in them."
He sprang to the window. Stéphane's head appeared. The boy picked up a stone and struck with all his might, throwing him backwards.
Véronique, who at the first moment had hesitated, not realising the danger, now rushed and seized the boy's arm. It was too late. The head vanished. The hooks of the ladder slipped off the ledge. There was a loud cry, followed by the sound of a body falling into the water below.
Véronique ran to the window. The ladder was floating on the part of the little pool which she was able to see, lying motionless in its frame of rocks. There was nothing to point to the place where Stéphane had fallen, not an eddy, not a ripple.
She called out:
"Stéphane! Stéphane! . . ."