“But what did she say to you?”

“She simply wanted to beat me.  When I shook her, she flew at me in a drunken fury, shouting abominable words.  And I had time only to escape with the little one, while she began barricading herself in the room, where she is now smashing the furniture!  There! just listen!”

Indeed, a distant uproar of destruction reached them.  They looked one at the other, and deep silence fell, full of embarrassment and alarm.

“And then?” Seguin ended by asking in his curt dry voice.

“Well, what can I say?  That woman is a brute beast, and I can’t leave Andree in her charge to be killed by her.  I have brought the child here, and I certainly shall not take her back.  I will even own that I won’t run the risk of going back to the room.  You will have to turn the girl out of doors, after paying her wages.”

“I!  I!” cried Seguin.  Then, walking up and down as if spurring on the anger which was rising within him, he burst forth:  “I’ve had enough, you know, of all these idiotic stories!  This house has become a perfect hell upon earth all through that child!  There will soon be nothing but fighting here from morning till night.  First of all it was pretended that the nurse whom I took the trouble to choose wasn’t healthy.  Well, then a second nurse is engaged, and she gets drunk and stifles the child.  And now, I suppose, we are to have a third, some other vile creature who will prey on us and drive us mad.  No, no, it’s too exasperating, I won’t have it.”

Valentine, her fears now calmed, became aggressive.  “What won’t you have?  There is no sense in what you say.  As we have a child we must have a nurse.  If I had spoken of nursing the little one myself you would have told me I was a fool.  You would have found the house more uninhabitable than ever, if you had seen me with the child always in my arms.  But I won’t nurse—­I can’t.  As you say, we will take a third nurse; it’s simple enough, and we’ll do so at once and risk it.”

Seguin had abruptly halted in front of Andree, who, alarmed by the sight of his stern dark figure began to cry.  Blinded as he was by anger, he perhaps failed to see her, even as he failed to see Gaston and Lucie, who had hastened in at the noise of the dispute and stood near the door, full of curiosity and fear.  As nobody thought of sending them away they remained there, and saw and heard everything.

“The carriage is waiting,” resumed Seguin, in a voice which he strove to render calm.  “Let us make haste, let us go.”

Valentine looked at him in stupefaction.  “Come, be reasonable,” said she.  “How can I leave this child when I have nobody to whom I can trust her?”

“The carriage is waiting for us,” he repeated, quivering; “let us go at once.”