No reply, nothing but the great silence of space in which the winds are still and the sea asleep.
"You villain, what have you done?" she cried.
"Don't take on, missus," he said. "Master Stéphane brought up your kid to be a duffer. Come it's a laughing matter, it is, really. Give us a kiss, won't you, daddy's missus? But, I say, what a face you're pulling! Surely you don't hate me as much as all that?"
He went up to her, with his arms outstretched. Véronique swiftly covered him with her revolver:
"Be off, be off, or I'll kill you as I would a mad dog! Be off!"
The boy's face became more inhuman than ever. He fell back step by step, snarling:
"Oh, I'll make you pay for this, my pretty lady! . . . What do you mean by it? I come up to give you a kiss . . . I'm full of kindly feelings . . . and you want to shoot me! You shall pay for it in blood . . . in nice red flowing blood . . . blood . . . blood . . . ."
He seemed to love the sound of the word. He repeated it time after time, then once more gave a burst of evil laughter and fled down the tunnel which led to the Priory, shouting:
"The blood of your son, Mother Véronique! . . . The blood of your darling François!"