"Why, did you not know?"
"Woman!—what?"
"Ask Thérèse," said Rosalie with a sullen look, and fell to plaiting the border of her coarse apron.
"Rosalie!"
His voice startled her, and her mood shifted.
"Yes, to be sure, he was a friend of yours, and it is bad news. Ah, he 's dead, there 's no doubt of that. I saw it with my own eyes. He had been ill, and could hardly mount the steps; but in the end he smiled and waved his hand, and went off as bravely as the best of them. It is a pity, but he offended Thérèse, and she is a devil. I told her so; I said to her, 'Thérèse, I think you are a devil,' and she only laughed."
Dangeau could see that laugh,—red, red lips, and white, even teeth, and all the while lips that had kissed hers livid, dabbled with blood. Oh, horrible! Poor Cléry, poor Edmond!
He gave a great shudder and forced his thoughts away from the vision they had evoked, but he sought voice twice before he could say:
"All else are well?"
She looked sullen again, and shrugged her shoulders.