She got to her feet more nimbly than she had ever done in her life, and the floor seemed to heave as she came towards Philip. “You speak to me with soft words,” she said harshly--“but you shall have the good hard truth from me. You want to know now where she is--I ask where you have been these five years? Your voice it tremble when you speak of her now. Oh ho! it has been nice and quiet these five years. The grand pethe of her drop dead in his chair when he know. The world turn against her, make light of her, when they know. All alone--she is all alone, but for one fat old fool like me. She bear all the shame, all the pain, for the crime of you. All alone she take her child and go on to the rock of Plemont to live these five years. But you, you go and get a crown and be Amiral and marry a grande comtesse--marry, oh, je crais ben! This is no world for such men like you. You come to my house, to the house of Jean Touzel, to ask this and that--well, you have the truth of God, ba su! No good will come to you in the end, nannin-gia! When you go to die, you will think and think and think of that beautiful Guida Landresse; you will think and think of the heart you kill, and you will call, and she will not come. You will call till your throat rattle, but she will not come, and the child of sorrow you give her will not come--no, bidemme! E’fin, the door you shut you can open now, and you can go from the house of Jean Touzel. It belong to the wife of an honest man--maint’nant!”
In the moment’s silence that ensued, Jean took a step forward. “Ma femme, ma bonne femme!” he said with a shaking voice. Then he pointed to the door. Humiliated, overwhelmed by the words of the woman, Philip turned mechanically towards the door without a word, and his fingers fumbled for the latch, for a mist was before his eyes. With a great effort he recovered himself, and passed slowly out into the Rue d’Egypte.
“A child--a child!” he said brokenly. “Guida’s child--my God! And I--have never--known. Plemont--Plemont, she is at Plemont!” He shuddered. “Guida’s child--and mine,” he kept saying to himself, as in a painful dream he passed on to the shore.
In the little fisherman’s cottage he had left, a fat old woman sat sobbing in the great chair made of barrel-staves, and a man, stooping, kissed her twice on the cheek--the first time in fifteen years. And then she both laughed and cried.