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Updated: June 8, 2025
The waiter paused. I sat silent in thought. "Is there anything else you wish to know, sir?" asked the waiter. Then my much-tried temper gave way again. "I want to know what the devil it all means!" I roared. The waiter drew near, wearing a very sympathetic expression. I knew that he had always put me down as an admirer of Marie Delhasse. He saw in me now a beaten rival.
"I might return your question," said I, looking her in the face. "Will you answer it?" she said, flushing red. "No, Mlle. Delhasse, I will not," said I. "What is the meaning of this 'absence' of the Duchess of Saint-Maclou which that man talks about so meaningly?" Then I said, speaking low and slow: "Who are the friends whom you are on your way to visit?" "Who are you?" she cried.
The man mounted the box, and at a foot-pace we set out. The duchess had not spoken again, nor had Marie Delhasse; but when I took my place by Marie the duchess suffered Gustave to join her, and in this order we passed along.
And all the while Marie Delhasse looked down from under drooping lids. I stepped up to the duchess' side. She saw me coming and turned her eyes to mine. "He looked just like that when he asked me to marry him," she said, with the simple gravity of a child whose usual merriment is sobered by something that it cannot understand. I doubted not that he had.
And the door closed upon them. The duke had not needed Bontet's rousing. I did not need Bontet to tell me that the coast was clear. With a last alert glance at the door, I trod softly across the landing and reached the stairs by which Mlle. Delhasse had descended. Gently I mounted, and on reaching the top of the flight found a door directly facing me. I turned the handle, but the door was locked.
"Well, if I did?" "Someone returning," said I stepping up to the table opposite her. "What then?" she asked, but wearily and not in the defiant manner of the morning. "Mme. Delhasse perhaps, or perhaps the Duke of Saint-Maclou?" Marie Delhasse made no answer.
I was about to ring the bell, when from the gate of the burial-ground the Mother Superior came at a slow pace. The old woman was frowning as she walked, and her frown deepened at sight of me. But I, caring nothing for what she thought, ran up to her, crying before I had well reached her: "Is Marie Delhasse still here?" The Mother stopped dead, and regarded me with disapprobation.
I suppose there was something in my tone that caught his attention, for his scornful air was superseded by an intent puzzled gaze, and his next question was put in lower tones: "What did you stay in Avranches for?" "Because your wife asked me," said I. The answer was true enough, but, as I wished to deal candidly with him, I added: "And, later on, Mlle. Delhasse expressed a similar desire."
She, in her turn, knew my voice; for the door was opened, and Marie Delhasse stood before me, her face pale with weariness and sorrow, and her eyes wide with wonder. She drew back before me, and I stepped in and shut the door, finding myself in a rather large, sparely furnished room. A door opposite was half-open. On the bed lay a bonnet and a jacket which certainly did not belong to Marie.
"What need is there of another?" "A good ground of quarrel?" he repeated, in a questioning tone. Honestly I believe that he had for the moment forgotten. His passion for Marie Delhasse and fury at the loss of her filled his whole mind. "Oh, yes," he went on. "About the duchess? True, Mr. Aycon. That will serve as well as the truth." "If that is not a real ground, I know none," said I.
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