"He certainly understands. When he opens the letter and reads it, the whole of the past will come back to his memory. We may give it to him."
George Errington supported him.
"Yes, mademoiselle, we may give it to him. It's a secret which belongs to him."
Dorothy however did not perform the action she had suggested. She looked at the old man with the most earnest attention. Then she took the lamp, moved it away, then near, examined the mutilated hand, and then suddenly burst into a fit of wild laughter; it burst out with all the violence of laughter long restrained.
Bent double, holding her ribs, she laughed till it hurt her. Her pretty head shook her wavy hair in a series of jerks. And it was a laugh so fresh and so young, of such irresistible gayety that the young men burst out laughing in their turn. Maître Delarue, on the other hand, irritated by a hilarity which seemed to him out of place in the circumstances protested in a tone of annoyance:
"Really, I'm amazed.... There's nothing to laugh at in all this.... We are in the presence of a really extraordinary occurrence...."
His shocked air re-doubled Dorothy's merriment. She stammered:
"Yes—extraordinary—a miracle! Goodness, how funny it is! And what a pleasure it is to let one's self go! I had been holding myself in quite long enough. Yes, I was manifestly serious ... uneasy.... But all the same I did want to laugh!... It is all so funny!"
The notary muttered:
"I don't see anything funny in it.... The Marquis——"