It was only because she did not know whither to go that she remained in the house, submitting to her son's contemptuous silence and secret brutality.
Pierre divined that she would have left long ago if she had only had a refuge.

He was waiting an opportunity to take a little apartment for her somewhere, when a fortuitous occurrence, which he had not ventured to anticipate, abruptly brought about the realisation of his desires.
Information reached the Faubourg that Macquart had just been killed on the frontier by a shot from a custom-house officer, at the moment when he was endeavouring to smuggle a load of Geneva watches into France.

The story was true.

The smuggler's body was not even brought home, but was interred in the cemetery of a little mountain village.

Adelaide's grief plunged her into stupor.