"
"What ails you?" she asked. "What is the matter?"
He looked at her, agape. He had hastened upstairs at a run to ask her for
an explanation, for he had quite lost his poor head over that
unaccountable catastrophe. And the apparent ignorance and tranquillity in
which he found Constance completed his dismay.
"But I left you near the trap," said he.
"Near the trap, yes. You went down, and I immediately came up here."
"But before I went down," he resumed with despairing violence, "I begged
you to wait for me and keep a watch on the hole, so that nobody might
fall through it."
"Oh! dear no. You said nothing to me, or, at all events, I heard nothing,
understood nothing of that kind."
In his terror he peered into her eyes. Assuredly she was lying. Calm as
she might appear, he could detect her voice trembling. Besides, it was
evident she must still have been there, since he had not even had time to
get below before it happened. And all at once he recalled their
conversation, the questions she had asked him and her cry of hatred
against the unfortunate young fellow who had now been picked up, covered
with blood, in the depths of that abyss.
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