Renee was standing up, her eyes wide open with terror; her lips moved and she opened her mouth to speak--to cry out: "I sent it!" Then all at once she put her hand to her heart, as if she had just been wounded there, and fell down unconscious and rigid on the carpet. XLI Denoisel came every day to Briche to inquire about Renee. When she was a little better, he was surprised that she did not ask for him. He had always been accustomed to seeing her when she was not well, even when she was lying down, as though he had been one of the family. And whenever she had been ill, he was always one of the first she had asked for. She expected him to entertain and amuse her, to enliven her during her convalescence and bring back her laughter. He was offended and kept away for a day or two, and then when he came again he still could not see her. One day he was told that she was too tired, another day that the Abbe Blampoix was talking to her. Finally, at the end of a week, he was allowed to see her. He expected an effusive welcome, such as invalids give their friends when they see them again for the first time. He thought that after an illness she would, in her impulsive way, be almost ready to embrace him. Renee held out her hand to him and just let her fingers lie in his for a second; she said a few words such as she might have said to any one, and after about a quarter of an hour closed her eyes as though she were sleepy. This coldness, which he could not understand in the least, irritated Denoisel and made him feel bitter. He was deeply hurt and humiliated, as his affection for Renee was pure and sincere and of such long standing. He tried to imagine what she could possibly have against him, and wondered whether M. Barousse had been instilling his ideas into her. Was she blaming him, as a witness of the duel, for her brother's death? Just about this time one of his friends who had a yacht at Cannes invited him for a cruise in the Mediterranean, and he accepted the invitation and went away at once. Renee was afraid of Denoisel. She only remembered the commencement of the attack that she had had in his presence, that terrible moment which had been followed by her fall and a fit of hysterics. She had had a sensation of being suffocated by her brother's blood, and she knew that a cry had come to her lips. She did not know whether she had spoken, whether her secret had escaped her while she was unconscious. Had she told Denoisel that she had killed Henri, that it was she who had sent that newspaper? Had she confessed her crime? When Denoisel entered her room she imagined that he knew all. The embarrassment which he felt and which was the effect of her manner to him, his coldness, which was entirely due to her own, all this confirmed her in her idea, in her certainty that she had spoken and that it was a judge who was there with her.