But Limousin did not move, and Parent, in a fresh access of rage, cried
out: "Go, will you! go, you wretches!... or else!... or else!..." and he
seized a chair and whirled it over his head.

Then Henriette walked quickly across the room, took her lover by the
arm, dragged him from the wall to which he appeared fixed, and dragged
him towards the door, saying: "Do come, my friend ... you see that the
man is mad.... Do come!"

As she went out, she turned round to her husband, trying to think of
something that she could do, something that she could invent to wound
him to the heart as she left the house, and an idea struck her, one of
those venomous, deadly ideas in which all a woman's perfidy shows
itself, and she said resolutely: "I am going to take my child with me."

Parent was stupefied and stammered: "Your ... your ... child? You dare
to talk of your child?... You venture ... you venture to ask for your
child ... after ... after ... Oh! oh! that is too much!... Go, you
horrid wretch!... Go!..." She went up to him again, almost smiling,
almost avenged already, and defying him, standing close to him, and face
to face, she said: "I want my child, and you have no right to keep him,
because he is not yours ... do you understand?... he is not yours ... he
is Limousin's." And Parent cried out in bewilderment: "You lie ... you
lie you wretch!"

But she continued: "You fool! Everybody knows it, except you. I tell
you, this is his father. You need only look at him, to see it...."

Parent staggered back from her, and then he suddenly turned round, took