"For your child's sake, madam," said I.
"Ah, you are right!" she murmured, and she passed into the dining-room; but there the little table was laid for two, and at that moment this trifle so saddened me as to deprive me of speech and motion. My increasing uneasiness rendered me quite awkward; I had not the wit to say what I did not think. The silence was prolonged; "and yet," said I to myself, "I am here to console her; she sent for me for that purpose. There must be fifty ways of explaining this delay—let me find one." I sought, and sought—and still I remained silent, inwardly cursing the poverty of invention of a poor village doctor. Eva, her head resting on her hand, forgot to eat. Suddenly she turned to me and burst out sobbing.
"Ah, doctor!" she exclaimed, "I see plainly that you too are uneasy."
"Not so, madam—indeed not so," replied I, speaking at random. "Why should I be uneasy? He has doubtless dined with the notary. The roads are safe, and no one knows that he went for money."
I had inadvertently revealed one of my secret causes of uneasiness. I knew that a band of foreign reapers had that morning passed through the village, on their way to a neighbouring department.
Eva uttered a cry.
"Robbers! robbers!" she exclaimed. "I never thought of that danger."
"But, madam, I only mention it to tell you it does not exist."
"Oh! the thought struck you, doctor, because you thought the misfortune possible! William, my own William! why did you leave me?" cried she, weeping bitterly.
I was in despair at my blunder, and I felt my eyes fill with tears. My distress gave me an idea.