“Patience!” he cried, in a dramatic style which would have made me smile had it been possible for me to display a glimmer of mirth at such a moment.  “Old fool! . . .  Slanderer at your age? . . .  Fie, sir! . . .  Ruined by good fortune . . . you are . . . yes.”

Patience, impassive as ever, shrugged his shoulders and said to his friend: 

“Marcasse, you do not know what you are saying.  Go and rest awhile at the bottom of the orchard.  This matter does not concern you.  I want to speak to your master alone.  I wish you to go,” he added, taking him by the arm; and there was a touch of authority in his manner to which the sergeant, in spite of his ticklish prided, yielded from instinct and habit.

As soon as we were alone Patience proceeded to the point; he began by a series of questions to which I resolved to submit, so that I might the more quickly obtain some light on the state of affairs around me.

“Will you kindly inform me, monsieur,” he said, “what you purpose doing now?”

“I purpose remaining with my family,” I answered, “as long as I have a family; and when this family is no more, what I shall do concerns no one.”

“But, sir,” replied Patience, “if you were told that you could not remain under the same roof with them without causing the death of one or the other, would you persist in staying?”

“If I were convinced that this was so,” I rejoined, “I would not appear in their presence.  I would remain at their door and await the last day of their life, or the first day of their renewed health, and again implore a love I have not yet ceased to deserve.”

“Ah, we have come to this!” said Patience, with a smile of contempt.  “I should not have believed it.  However, I am very glad; it makes matters clearer.”

“What do you mean?” I cried.  “Speak, you wretch!  Explain yourself!”

“You are the only wretch here,” he answered coldly, at the same time sitting down on the one stool in the cottage, while I remained standing before him.

I wanted to draw an explanation from him, at all costs.  I restrained my feelings; I even humbled myself so far as to say that I should be ready to accept advice, if he would consent to tell me the words that Edmee had uttered immediately after the event, and those which she had repeated in her hours of delirium.

“That I will not,” replied Patience sternly; “you are not worthy to hear any words from that mouth, and I shall certainly never repeat them to you.  Why do you want to know them?  Do you hope to hide anything from men hereafter?  God saw you; for Him there are no secrets.  Leave this place; stay at Roche-Mauprat; keep quiet there; and when your uncle is dead and your affairs are settled, leave this part of the country.  If you take my advice, you will leave it this very day.  I do not want to put the law on your track, unless your actions force me.  But others besides myself,