“Even so; and we will think of nothing but breakfast; it makes one hollow to row, and I put all my strength into it.”
“Yes, and after that, I have still another duty to perform, and I shall not fail to perform it.”
“Come; see, Ami will be there before us.”
When Chamoureau reached home after the duel, he found Thélénie pacing the floor of her apartment in great agitation. She was counting the hours and minutes. It was not the result of the duel that preoccupied her so, but the result of the plan she had formed to destroy Honorine and Agathe.
Her messenger, after delivering the note with which she had entrusted him, had, in accordance with her orders, lain in ambush a short distance from the house, and had seen the two ladies rush out and hasten in the direction indicated by the note; then he had returned to Madame de Belleville and made his report.
She therefore had no doubt as to the result of her villainy, and yet she felt some inquietude, a vague terror which increased with every moment. The slightest noise, the approach of some person, the sound of a voice, made her start, and stop abruptly to look about her. Despite her perversity, she found that a crime so detestable as that which she had committed, brings in its train,—if not remorse, when the criminal is too hardened,—at least a terror which is an incessant, never-ending torment.
And so, when her husband appeared before her, Thélénie glared at him in dismay, crying:
“What is it? What do you want of me, monsieur? What have you learned?”
“Be calm, my dear love, pull yourself together. You are very anxious, I see; you are very pale. I thank you for your deep interest in me, but there are as many killed as wounded, and no one is dead.”
“No one dead? What are you talking about, monsieur? Explain yourself, pray.”