"Well, Monsieur de Boisguilbault, have you looked at her enough," continued the carpenter, with a mischievous, self-satisfied air, "and cannot you yourself guess what should interest you most in her?" The marquis rose and at once fell back in his chair. A ray of light had passed through his mind at last, and his penetration, so long at fault, suddenly went farther than Jean desired. He thought that he had guessed, and he cried in a tone of intense indignation: "She shall not stay here an instant longer!" Gilberte, awakened with a start and terrified beyond words, saw before her the marquis's angry face. She thought that she was lost, and reflecting with despair that, instead of bringing her father and Monsieur de Boisguilbault together, she would be the cause of embittering their enmity, she had no other thought than to take all the blame upon herself and to seek pardon for Monsieur Antoine. Falling on her knees with the grace of a flower bending before the tempest, she seized the marquis's trembling hand, and, too agitated to speak, bowed her lovely head and leaned her pallid brow on the old man's arm. "Well, well," said the carpenter, seizing the marquis's other arm and shaking it violently, "what are you thinking about, Monsieur de Boisguilbault, to frighten this child so? Is your mania taking hold of you again, and shall I have to lose my temper with you, after all?" "Who is she?" rejoined the marquis, trying to push Gilberte away, but too nervous to be able to do it; "tell me who she is, I insist upon knowing!" "You do know, as I have already told you," said Jean with a shrug; "she is the sister of a country curé, with no money and no name. Is that why you speak so roughly to her? Do you want her to know what I know about you. Try not to let her see you in one of your attacks, Monsieur de Boisguilbault; you see that your savage airs make her sick with fright! and it's a devil of a way of entertaining her and doing the honors of your house! She could hardly expect this after being so polite to you; and the worst of it is that I can't tell her what the matter is with you, because I haven't any idea myself." "I don't know whether you are making sport of me," said the marquis, deeply distressed; "but what did you mean just now?" "Something that would have given you pleasure, but which I won't tell you now, as you are out of your head." "Speak, Jean; explain yourself; I can't stand this uncertainty." "I can't stand it either," said Gilberte, bursting into tears. "I don't know, Jean, what you have said or tried to say about me; I don't know what my position is here, but it is unendurable to me. Let us go!" "No--no--" said the marquis, beset by irresolution and shame; "it is still raining, the weather is horrible and I don't want you to go." "Well, then, why did you want to turn her out just now?" retorted Jean with contemptuous tranquillity; "who can understand your whims? For my part, I give it up, and I am going."