And that coward! that wretch! that assassin, De Wardes, did it!”

Manicamp seemed overcome by a violent emotion. He had, in fact, displayed no little energy in the latter part of his speech. As for Madame, she entirely threw aside all regard for the formal observances of propriety society imposes; for when, with her, passion spoke in accents either of anger or sympathy, nothing could restrain her impulses. Madame approached Manicamp, who had subsided in a chair, as if his grief were a sufficiently powerful excuse for his infraction of the laws of etiquette. “Monsieur,” she said, seizing him by the hand, “be frank with me.”

Manicamp looked up.

“Is M. de Guiche in danger of death?”