These quarrels of the married couple placed her in possession of the most minute circumstances connected with the murder, and spread out, one by one, before her terrified mind, all the episodes of the horrible adventure. As she went deeper into this sanguinary filth, she pleaded in her mind for mercy, at times, she fancied she was touching the bottom of the infamy, and still she had to descend lower. Each night, she learnt some new detail. The frightful story continued to expand before her. It seemed like being lost in an interminable dream of horror. The first avowal had been brutal and crushing, but she suffered more from these repeated blows, from these small facts which the husband and wife allowed to escape them in their fits of anger, and which lit up the crime with sinister rays. Once a day, this mother heard the account of the murder of her son; and, each day this account became more horrifying, more replete with detail, and was shouted into her ears with greater cruelty and uproar. On one occasion, Thérèse, taken aback with remorse, at the sight of this wan countenance, with great tears slowly coursing down its cheeks, pointed out her aunt to Laurent, beseeching him with a look to hold his tongue. “Well, what of it? Leave me alone!” exclaimed the latter in a brutal tone, “you know very well that she cannot give us up. Am I more happy than she is? We have her cash, I have no need to constrain myself.” The quarrel continued, bitter and piercing, and Camille was killed over again. Neither Thérèse nor Laurent dared give way to the thoughts of pity that sometimes came over them, and shut the paralysed woman in her bedroom, when they quarrelled, so as to spare her the story of the crime. They were afraid of beating one another to death, if they failed to have this semi-corpse between them. Their pity yielded to cowardice. They imposed ineffable sufferings on Madame Raquin because they required her presence to protect them against their hallucinations. All their disputes were alike, and led to the same accusations. As soon as one of them accused the other of having killed this man, there came a frightful shock. One night, at dinner, Laurent who sought a pretext for becoming irritable, found that the water in the decanter was lukewarm. He declared that tepid water made him feel sick, and that he wanted it fresh. “I was unable to procure any ice,” Thérèse answered dryly. “Very well, I will deprive myself of drinking,” retorted Laurent. “This water is excellent,” said she. “It is warm, and has a muddy taste,” he answered. “It’s like water from the river.” “Water from the river?” repeated Thérèse. And she burst out sobbing. A juncture of ideas had just occurred in her mind. “Why do you cry?” asked Laurent, who foresaw the answer, and turned pale. “I cry,” sobbed the young woman, “I cry because--you know why--Oh! Great God! Great God! It was you who killed him.”