"You hear me!" he shouted. "Therese may drag herself at my feet; but I
will never, never give her to your thief of a son! You'd like it,
wouldn't you? so that folks might mock me all over the district, and so
that you might eat me up as you have eaten up all the others!"
This finish to it all had doubtless appeared to him, confusedly, in a
sudden threatening vision: Antonin being dead, it was Gregoire who would
possess the mill, if he should marry Therese. And he would possess the
moorland also, that enclosure, hitherto left barren with such savage
delight, and so passionately coveted by the farm. And doubtless he would
cede it to the farm as soon as he should be the master. The thought that
Chantebled might yet be increased by the fields which he, Lepailleur, had
withheld from it brought the miller's delirious rage to a climax.
"Your son, I'll send him to the galleys! And you, if you don't go, I'll
throw you out! Be off with you, be off!"
Mathieu, who was very pale, slowly retired before this furious madman.
But as he went off he calmly said: "You are an unhappy man. I forgive
you, for you are in great grief. Besides, I am quite easy, sensible
things always end by taking place.
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