"I should hardly have known you, Jean," exclaimed Pierre in amazement. "Is it really you, who speak thus?—you, who are generally so moderate and calm."
"It is just because of my moderation and calmness," replied Jean, "that I am able to view more dispassionately the situation into which you are inconsiderately plunging us to-day."
"Do you believe, pray," rejoined Pierre, "that I would accept with any better grace the infamy of my brother-in-law than my sister's shame? No; if we find Babette's betrayer, I am in hopes that, after all, his fraud may have done no harm except to ourselves and Martin-Guerre; and in that event I rely upon good Martin's friendship for us to cause him to desist from making a complaint, the result of which would fall upon the innocent equally with the guilty."
"Oh," said Martin-Guerre from his bed, "there is no vindictiveness in my nature, and I have no desire for the death of the sinner. If he but pays his debt to you, I will discharge him from any claim I have against him."
"All that is very fine so far as the past is concerned," retorted Jean, who seemed only moderately delighted over the squire's forgiving disposition. "But the future,—who will answer for the future?"
"I will be always on the watch," replied Pierre. "Babette's husband shall never be out of my sight, and it will be best for him to remain an honest man and walk in the straight path, or else—"
"You will inflict justice upon him yourself, will you not?" Jean interposed. "It will be full time. Babette, meanwhile, will have been sacrificed all the same."
"Very well; but you must remember, Jean," retorted Pierre, rather out of patience, "that if it is a difficult position, I simply am meeting it. I did not bring it about. Have you, who talk so finely, been able to devise any other plan than that which I suggest?"
"Yes, of course there is another resource," said Jean.
"What is it?" asked Pierre and Babette in one breath,—Pierre, it must be said, quite as eagerly as his sister.