'Nor thought much about it?'
'Not a great deal,' I answered.
'Saint Gris!' he exclaimed in a low tone. 'And do you never think of hell-fire--of the worm which dieth not, and the fire which shall not be quenched? Do you never think of that, M. de Marsac?'
'No, my friend, never!' I answered, rising impatiently; for at that hour, and in that silent, gloomy room I found his conversation dispiriting. 'I believe what I was taught to believe, and I strive to hurt no one but the enemy. I think little; and if I were you I would think less. I would do something, man--fight, play, work, anything but think! Leave that to clerks.'
'I am a clerk,' he answered.
'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 fare. '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.'