Ah! the wretches! I'll skin them, I will, her as well as him."
At last, however, the miller grew calmer and was even showing a
disposition to discuss matters, when all at once an urchin of Janville
came running across the yard.
"What do you want, eh?" called the master of the premises.
"Please, Monsieur Lepailleur, it's a telegram."
"All right, give it here."
The lad, well pleased with the copper he received as a gratuity, had
already gone off, and still the miller, instead of opening the telegram,
stood examining the address on it with the distrustful air of a man who
does not often receive such communications. However, he at last had to
tear it open. It contained but three words: "Your son dead"; and in that
brutal brevity, that prompt, hasty bludgeon-blow, one could detect the
mother's cold rage and eager craving to crush without delay the man, the
father yonder, whom she accused of having caused her son's death, even as
she had accused him of being responsible for her daughter's flight. He
felt this full well, and staggered beneath the shock, stunned by the
words that appeared on that strip of blue paper, reading them again and
again till he ended by understanding them.
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