But suddenly repenting, for Virginie was a hard-working widow who had behaved very well for an outsider--having come from Chalfonte beyond the Beau Chevalshe added: "But if he was a Protestant and could get a divorce, and you did marry him, you'd make him have more sense than he's got; for you've a quiet sensible way, and you've worked hard since Palass Poucette died." "Where doesn't he show sense, that M'sieu' Jean Jacques ?" the younger woman asked.
"Where?
Why, with his girl--with Ma'm'selle." "Everybody I ever heard speaks well of Ma'm'selle Zoe," returned the other warmly, for she had a very generous mind and a truthful, sentimental heart.

Mere Langlois sniffed, and put her hands on her hips, for she had a daughter of her own; also she was a relation of Jean Jacques, and therefore resented in one way the difference in their social position, while yet she plumed herself on being kin.
"Then you'll learn something now you never knew before," she said.
"She's been carrying on--there's no other word for it--with an actor fellow--" "Yes, yes, I did hear about him--a Protestant and an Englishman." "Well, then, why do you pretend you don't know--only to hear me talk, is it?
Take my word, I'd teach cousin Zoe a lesson with all her education and her two years at the convent.

Wasn't it enough that her mother should spoil everything for Jean Jacques, and make the Manor Cartier a place to point the finger at, without her bringing disgrace on the parish too! What happened last night--didn't I hear this morning before I had my breakfast! Didn't I--" She then proceeded to describe the scene in which Jean Jacques had thrown the wrecked guitar of his vanished spouse into the fire.

Before she had finished, however, something occurred which swept them into another act of the famous history of Jean Jacques Barbille and his house.
She had arrived at the point where Zoe had cried aloud in pain at her father's incendiary act, when there was a great stir at the Court House door which opened on the market-place, and vagrant cheers arose.
These were presently followed by a more disciplined fusillade; which presently, in turn, was met by hisses and some raucous cries of resentment.

These increased as a man appeared on the steps of the Court House, looked round for a moment in a dazed kind of way, then seeing some friends below who were swarming towards him, gave a ribald cry, and scrambled down the steps towards them.
He was the prisoner whose release had suddenly been secured by a piece of evidence which had come as a thunder-clap on judge and jury.
Immediately after giving this remarkable evidence the witness--Sebastian Dolores--had left the court-room.