A pause followed; Frederic Brunner left Cecile’s grandfather and politely took leave of his host and hostess.  When he was gone, Cecile appeared, a living commentary upon her Werther’s leave-taking; she was ghastly pale.  She had hidden in her mother’s wardrobe and overheard the whole conversation.

“Refused! . . .” she said in a low voice for her mother’s ear.

“And why?” asked the Presidente, fixing her eyes upon her embarrassed father-in-law.

“Upon the fine pretext that an only daughter is a spoilt child,” replied that gentleman.  “And he is not altogether wrong there,” he added, seizing an opportunity of putting the blame on the daughter-in-law, who had worried him not a little for twenty years.

“It will kill my child!” cried the Presidente, “and it is your doing!” she exclaimed, addressing Pons, as she supported her fainting daughter, for Cecile thought well to make good her mother’s words by sinking into her arms.  The President and his wife carried Cecile to an easy-chair, where she swooned outright.  The grandfather rang for the servants.

“It is a plot of his weaving; I see it all now,” said the infuriated mother.

Pons sprang up as if the trump of doom were sounding in his ears.

“Yes!” said the lady, her eyes like two springs of green bile, “this gentleman wished to repay a harmless joke by an insult.  Who will believe that that German was right in his mind?  He is either an accomplice in a wicked scheme of revenge, or he is crazy.  I hope, M. Pons, that in future you will spare us the annoyance of seeing you in the house where you have tried to bring shame and dishonor.”

Pons stood like a statue, with his eyes fixed on the pattern of the carpet.

“Well!  Are you still here, monster of ingratitude?” cried she, turning round on Pons, who was twirling his thumbs.—­“Your master and I are never at home, remember, if this gentleman calls,” she continued, turning to the servants.—­“Jean, go for the doctor; and bring hartshorn, Madeleine.”

In the Presidente’s eyes, the reason given by Brunner was simply an excuse, there was something else behind; but, at the same time, the fact that the marriage was broken off was only the more certain.  A woman’s mind works swiftly in great crises, and Mme. de Marville had hit at once upon the one method of repairing the check.  She chose to look upon it as a scheme of revenge.  This notion of ascribing a fiendish scheme to Pons satisfied family honor.  Faithful to her dislike of the cousin, she treated a feminine suspicion as a fact.  Women, generally speaking, hold a creed peculiar to themselves, a code of their own; to them anything which serves their interests or their passions is true.  The Presidente went a good deal further.  In the course of the evening she talked the President into her belief, and next morning found the magistrate convinced of his cousin’s culpability.