"Why! what good wind has blown you here?" cried Denis gayly, when he
perceived his father. "Have you come to lunch? I'm still a bachelor, you
know; for it is only next Monday that I shall go to fetch Marthe and the
children from Dieppe, where they have spent a delightful September."
Then, on hearing that his mother was ailing, even in danger, he become
serious and anxious.
"Mamma ill, and in danger! You amaze me. I thought she was simply
troubled with some little indisposition. But come, father, what is really
the matter? Are you hiding something? Is something worrying you?"
Thereupon he listened to the plain and detailed statement which Mathieu
felt obliged to make to him. And he was deeply moved by it, as if the
dread of the catastrophe which it foreshadowed would henceforth upset his
life. "What!" he angrily exclaimed, "my brothers are up to these fine
pranks with their idiotic quarrel! I knew that they did not get on well
together. I had heard of things which saddened me, but I never imagined
that matters had gone so far, and that you and mamma were so affected
that you had shut yourselves up and were dying of it all! But things must
be set to rights! One must see Ambroise at once.
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