Dossonville inclined his head, awaiting the explosion. To his surprise, she remained quiet, withdrawing a little, while her eyes still waited on him, as though expecting a denial.
"How curious!" she said at length. "I never thought of that. Ah, I understand why she hid it. Now tell me all."
Seeing that she did not realize the extent of the revelation, Dossonville quickly related the facts, astonished at her calm, wondering what force was working beneath the surface.
Louison, in fact, unable immediately to comprehend the situation, continued to watch Dossonville, as though to estimate from his behavior the force of the change to her. Remembering his attempted escape on the Place de la Revolution, and alarmed at a new reserve in his manner, she asked herself angrily, albeit anxiously, what difference the knowledge would make in him. To test him, she advanced a step and said, holding out her arms as though to embrace him:
"Thanks, my friend; you have kept your promise."
He withdrew but a step and only for an instant, but that involuntary shrinking was her sentence.
With a cry of despair, she bounded back, transformed with hot, revolting anger, her fingers struggling against the temptation of the dagger, crying to him:
"Go! Go quickly! Go now!"
Then, distrusting the murder in her heart, she fled into the woods; but in a moment, crazed with the cruel injustice of her fate, she came running back, her lips trembling with passion, her breath cut and quick. With his accustomed prudence, Dossonville had retired by another direction, leaving Louison to tire herself out among the fragrant paths in fruitless, maddened rushings.