‘A poor one, it seems,’ I retorted, with a little scorn in my tone. ‘Leave it, man. Work! Fight! Do something!’
‘Fight?’ he said, as if the idea were a novel one. ‘Fight? But there, I might be killed; and then hell-fire, you see!’
‘Zounds, man!’ I cried, out of patience with a folly which, to tell the truth, the lamp burning low, and the rain pattering on the roof, made the skin of my back feel cold and creepy. ‘Enough of this! Keep your doubts and your fire to yourself! And answer me,’ I continued, sternly. ‘How came Madame de Bonne so poor? How did she come down to this place?’
He sat down on his stool, the excitement dying quickly out of his face. ‘She gave away all her money,’ he said slowly and reluctantly. It may be imagined that this answer surprised me. ‘Gave it away?’ I exclaimed. ‘To whom? And when?’
He moved uneasily on his seat and avoided my eye, his altered manner filling me with suspicions which the insight I had just obtained into his character did not altogether preclude. At last he said, ‘I had nothing to do with it, if you mean that; nothing. On the contrary, I have done all I could to make it up to her. I followed her here. I swear that is so, M. de Marsac.’
‘You have not told me yet to whom she gave it,’ I said sternly.
‘She gave it,’ he muttered, ‘to a priest.’
‘To what priest?’
‘I do not know his name. He is a Jacobin.’
‘And why?’ I asked, gazing incredulously at the student. ‘Why did she give it to him? Come, come! have a care. Let me have none of your Sorbonne inventions!’