‘What has happened? God guard us from misfortune!’

Susan moved her lips. No sound came. Madame Levaille stepped up to her daughter, took her by the arm, looked into her face.

‘In God’s name,’ she said shakily, ‘what’s the matter? You have been rolling in mud. … Why did you come? … Where’s Jean?’

The men had all got up and approached slowly, staring with dull surprise. Madame Levaille jerked her daughter away from the door, swung her round upon a seat close to the wall. Then she turned fiercely to the men:

‘Enough of this! Out you go—you others! I close.’

One of them observed, looking down at Susan collapsed on the seat: ‘She is—one may say—half dead.’

Madame Levaille flung the door open.

‘Get out! March!’ she cried, shaking nervously.

They dropped out into the night, laughing stupidly. Outside, the two Lotharios^* broke out into loud shouts. The others tried to soothe them, all talking at once. The noise went away up the lane with the men, who staggered together in a tight knot, remonstrating with one another foolishly.

‘Speak, Susan. What is it? Speak!’ entreated Madame Levaille, as soon as the door was shut.

Susan pronounced some incomprehensible words, glaring at the table. The old woman clapped her hands above her head, let them drop, and stood looking at her daughter with disconsolate eyes. Her husband had been ‘deranged in his head’ for a few years before he died, and now she began to suspect her daughter was going mad. She asked, pressingly:

‘Does Jean know where you are? Where is Jean?’

Susan pronounced with difficulty:

‘He knows … he is dead.’

‘What!’ cried the old woman. She came up near, and peering at her daughter, repeated three times: ‘What do you say? What do you say? What do you say?’

Susan sat dry-eyed and stony before Madame Levaille, who contemplated her, feeling a strange sense of inexplicable horror creep into the silence of the house. She had hardly realized the news, further than to understand that she had been brought in one short moment face to face with something unexpected and final. It did not even occur to her to ask for any explanation. She thought: accident—terrible accident—blood to the head—fell down a trap door in the loft. … She remained there, distracted and mute, blinking her old eyes.

Suddenly, Susan said:

‘I have killed him.’

For a moment the mother stood still, almost unbreathing, but with composed face. The next second, she burst out into a shout:

‘You miserable madwoman … they will cut your neck. …’^*