He was choking, and wished to go off. And he began to look about him for his hat, though, all the while, he had it on his head.
‘Good-bye!’ he stammered; ‘I am going. So you won’t come? Do, now--for my sake! You see how miserable, how upset I am. I swear to you that she shall go away immediately afterwards. That is all settled. My gig is here; you might be back in an hour. Come, do come, I beg you.’
The priest made a sweeping gesture; such a gesture as the doctor had seen him make before the altar.
Then, as he accompanied his uncle out of the room, he added:
‘Tell her to fall on her knees and pray to God. God will hear her as He heard me, and He will comfort her as He has comforted me. There is no other means of salvation.’
The doctor looked him full in the face, and shrugged his shoulders.
‘Good-bye, then,’ he repeated. ‘You are quite well now, and have no further need of me.’
But, as he was unfastening his horse, Desirée, who had heard his voice, came running up. She was extremely attached to her uncle. When she had been younger he had been wont to listen to her childish prattle for hours without showing the least sign of weariness. And, even now, he did his best to spoil her, and manifested the greatest interest in her farmyard, often spending a whole afternoon with her amongst her fowls and ducks, and smiling at her with his bright eyes. He seemed to consider her superior to other girls. And so she now flung herself round his neck, in an impulse of affection, and cried:
‘Aren’t you going to stay and have some lunch with us?’
But having kissed her, he said he could not remain, and unfastened her arms from his neck with a somewhat pettish air. She laughed however, and again clasped her arms round him.
‘Oh! but you must,’ she persisted. ‘I have some eggs that have only just been laid. I have been looking in the nests, and there are fourteen eggs this morning. And, if you will stay, we can have a fowl, the white one, that is always quarrelling with the others. When you were here on Thursday, you know, it pecked the big spotted hen’s eye out.’
But her uncle persisted in his refusal. He was irritated to find that he could not unfasten the knot in which he had tied his reins. And then she began to skip round him, clapping her hands and repeating in a sing-song voice: ‘Yes! yes! you’ll stay, and we will eat it up, we’ll eat it up!’