"Yes, it kept me housed six weeks. But for that, I should have been at home more than a month ago."
"More than a month! Ah! then you were anxious to return at once as soon as you learned—what had happened?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why, the thing that caused—oh! surely you know?"
"No, I do not know. I intended to return, because I had finished my uncle's business, because I was horribly bored in England, and because I had no reason for staying away from Paris any longer."
"Was that all?"
"To be sure. What other reason are you thinking of, pray?"
"Don't you know that the Comte de la Bérinière is dead?"
"Certainly I know it."
"And that he died before he had married my sister?"