ck, I'm certain of it! I have just learned quite sufficient
to show me where he is going. He's going back to Cayenne, do you hear?"

Then, after a pause, she continued in calmer ones: "Oh, the unhappy man!
He had everything here that he could wish for. He might have redeemed
his character; he had nothing but good examples before him. But no,
it is in his blood! He will come to a violent end with his politics! I
insist upon there being an end to all this! You hear me, Quenu? I gave
you due warning long ago!"

She spoke the last words very incisively. Quenu bent his head, as if
awaiting sentence.

"To begin with," continued Lisa, "he shall cease to take his meals here.
It will be quite sufficient if we give him a bed. He is earning money;
let him feed himself."

Quenu seemed on the point of protesting, but his wife silenced him by
adding energetically:

"Make your choice between him and me. If he remains here, I swear to
you that I will go away, and take my daughter with me. Do you want me to
tell you the whole truth about him? He is a man capable of anything; he
has come here to bring discord into our household. But I will set things
right, you may depend on it. You have your choice between him and me;
you hear me?"

Then, leaving her husband in silent consternation, she returned to the
shop, where she served a customer with her usual affable smile. The fact
was that, having artfully inveigled Gavard into a political discussion,
the poultry dealer had told her that she would soon see how the land
lay, that they were going to make a clean sweep of everything, and that
two determined men like her brother-in-law and himself would suffice to
set the fire blazing. This was the evil trick of which she had spoken
to Quenu, some conspiracy to which Gavard was always making mysterious
allusions with a sniggering grin from which he seemingly desired a great
deal to be inferred. And in imagination Lisa already saw the gendarmes
invading the pork shop, gagging herself, her husband, and Pauline, and
casting them into some underground dungeon.

In the evening, at dinner, she evinced an icy frigidity. She made no
offers to serve Florent, but several times remarked: "It's very strange
what an amount of bread we've got through lately."

Florent at last understood. He felt that he was being treated like a
poor relation who is gradually turned out of doors. For the last two
months Lisa had dressed him in Quenu's old trousers and c