The Marquis had stepped out on to the balcony to ascertain whether La Boulaye had yet regained consciousness.
"He seems to be even now recovering," said someone.
"Ah, you are there, Suzanne," cried Bellecour.

"You see your friend the secretary there.

He has chosen to present himself in a new role to-day.
From being my servant, it seems that he would constitute himself my murderer." However unfilial it might be, she could not stifle a certain sympathy for this young man.

She imagined that his rebellion, whatever shape it had assumed, had been provoked by that weal upon his face; and it seemed to her then that he had been less than a man had he not attempted to exact some reparation for the hurt the whip had inflicted at once upon his body and his soul.
"But what is it that he has done, Monsieur ?" she asked, seeking more than the scant information which so far she had received.
"Enough, at least, to justify my hanging him," answered Bellecour grimly.

"He sought to withstand my authority; he incited the peasants of Bellecour to withstand it; he has killed Blaise, and he would have killed me but that I preferred to let him kill my horse." "In what way did he seek to withstand your authority!" she persisted.
He stared at her, half surprised, half angry.
"What doers the manner of it signify ?" he asked impatiently.