When they got upstairs on this particular occasion, they sat down an
instant with pale lips, and eyes gazing vaguely before them. Laurent was
the first to break silence:
"Well! Aren't we going to bed?" he inquired, as if he had just started
from a dream.
"Yes, yes, we are going to bed," answered Therese, shivering as though
she felt a violent chill.
She rose and grasped the water decanter.
"Let it be," exclaimed her husband, in a voice that he endeavoured to
render natural, "I will prepare the sugar and water. You attend to your
aunt."
He took the decanter of water from the hands of his wife and poured out
a glassful. Then, turning half round, he emptied the contents of the
small stoneware flagon into the glass at the same time as he dropped a
lump of sugar into it. In the meanwhile, Therese had bent down before
the sideboard, and grasping the kitchen knife sought to slip it into one
of the large pockets hanging from her waist.
At the same moment, a strange sensation which comes as a warning note
of danger, made the married couple instinctively turn their heads. They
looked at one another. Therese perceived the flagon in the hands of
Laurent, and the latter caught sight of the flash of the blade in the
folds of the skirt of his wife.
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