“And whom did you see in the village, my son?” she asked, the next morning during the improvement which returned every time, in the first hours of the day, after the fever had subsided¹.  
“And whom did you see in the village, my son?—” In talking, she tried to retain an air of gaiety, of saying indifferent things, in the fear of attacking grave subjects and of provoking disquieting² replies.
 
“I saw Arrochkoa, mother,” he replied, in a tone which brought back suddenly the burning questions.
 
“Arrochkoa!—And how did he behave with you?”
 
“Oh, he talked to me as if I had been his brother.”
 
“Yes, I know, I know.—Oh, it was not he who made her do it—”
 
“He said even—”
 
He did not dare to continue now, and he lowered his head.
 
“He said what, my son?”
 
“Well, that—that it was hard to put her in prison there—that perhaps—that, even now, if she saw me, he was not far from thinking—”
 
She straightened under the shock of what she had just suspected; with her thin hands she parted her hair, newly whitened, and her eyes became again young and sharp, in an expression almost wicked from joy, from avenged3

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