‘You’re late to-night, madame! You should save your eye-sight—or, better still, your oil and fuel. Aren’t you going to bed at all?’
She shook her head vehemently.
‘For me, I have no stomach for bed, at all, at all. To sleep would be but to see again that which I have, this day, seen. What? Have you not heard?’
He shook his head.
‘Ah! What misfortune! To-day, at noon, they shot M. Lemoine!’
M. Lemoine—the prominent citizen and advocate! Quality could not credit the news. His mind conjured up a vivid picture of that portly form and plum-coloured face, as madame proceeded.
‘Yes, m’sieur, I saw it. It was horrible. Two soldiers ran him down the steps of the hotel—quick, quick! yet, at every step, one saw him shrink. It was as though a hole had been pierced in him, so that the man came leaking through. At the top, there was the fine figure—so brave, so big; at the bottom, only a shrunken stranger, with eyes that ran, ran, and fingers that picked, and little bubbles around his lips, rising, rising. He—himself—was gone. There was no longer any M. Lemoine!’
Told in her native tongue, with pantomimic gesture to point her words, the recital was ghastly.
Breathing heavily, Quality cleared his throat to ask a question.