The Fresneau family were at dinner when the commissionaire delivered Suzanne's letter. Françoise entered, holding the dainty envelope in her great red hand, and the expression on René's face as he tore it open sufficed to tell Emilie from whom the missive came. She trembled. The sight of her brother's wild despair had emboldened her to refuse admission to the unknown visitor whom she had instinctively recognised as its undoubted cause, the dangerous woman Claude Larcher had spoken of as the most wanton creature living. But to face René's anger and tell him what she had done was beyond her strength, and she postponed the unpleasant step from hour to hour. The look her brother gave her after reading the letter made her drop her eyes and colour to the roots of her hair. Fresneau, who was carving a fowl with rare ability--he had learnt the art, a strange one for him, at his father's table in days gone by--was so struck by the expression on his brother-in-law's face that he sat staring at him with a wing stuck on the point of his fork. Then, being afraid that his wife had noticed his surprise, he broke out into a laugh and tried to excuse his momentary abstraction by saying, 'This knife will cut butter.' His jocular remark was followed by a silence that lasted until dinner was over--a silence threatening to Emilie, inexplicable to Fresneau, and unperceived by René, who was almost choking and did not eat a mouthful. Hardly had Françoise removed the cloth and placed the tobacco bowl and the decanter of brandy on the table when the poet went off to his room, after having asked the maid to light him a lamp. 'He looks annoyed, doesn't he?' observed the professor. 'Annoyed?' replied Emilie. 'Some idea for his play has probably occurred to him, and he wants to put it into writing at once. But it's a bad thing to work immediately after dinner--I'll go and tell him so.' Glad to have found some excuse, Emilie went into her brother's room. She found him scribbling a reply to Suzanne's note in the twilight, without even waiting for the lamp. He was no doubt expecting his sister to come in, for he said roughly and in an angry tone; 'Oh, there you are! Some one called to see me to-day, and you said I was out of town?' 'René,' said Emilie, joining her hands, 'forgive me; I thought I was doing right. I was afraid of your seeing this woman in your present state.' Then, finding strength in the ardour of her affection to bare her inmost thoughts, she went on, 'This woman is your evil genius----' 'It seems,' cried the poet, with suppressed rage, 'that you still take me for a child of fifteen. Am I at home here--yes or no?' he shouted, bursting out. 'If I cannot do as I like, say so, and I'll go and live elsewhere. I have had enough of this coddling, you understand. Look after your son and your husband, and let me do as I like.'