"What difference does it make what he has done for me? He made Violette so unhappy by turning her out of this house that she wanted to die, and that she would have died without you!"
"As if he could have guessed that! You must see that this gentleman must know Violette's parents, and that they have played some vile trick on him, and that there's some deviltry in all this that we don't know about."
"I don't care; I propose to go to Paris and ask her to forgive me for suspecting her."
"So far as that goes, you will do well; but that ain't any reason for leaving your protector, for behaving mean to him, and I don't propose——"
"Hush! here he is!'"
Monsieur de Brévanne had returned from Paris. He saw the two young men. He observed Georget's excitement and agitation, and, divining a part of the truth, he went at once to his protégé, and asked him, pointing to Chicotin:
"Who is this young man?"
"He is a friend of mine, monsieur, an old comrade; he is Chicotin, whom I've mentioned to you once or twice."
"Ah! yes, I remember. What does he want?"
"He came, monsieur, to tell me that Violette tried to throw herself into the water, when she left this house after you had driven her away; for it was she, monsieur, it was really she who came here, and you told me that it wasn't.—Poor Violette! but for him she would not be alive, and I—my mother would not have any son!"