"Hold your
tongue!" she hissed.
But again the other shook herself loose. She was powerful, and
now her rage was not to be controlled. She waved her hands in
the air, shouting, "Let me be, let me be! I know all about your
brat--that you will never be able to raise it--that it's rotten
because it's father has a filthy disease he got from a woman of
the street!"
She got no farther. She was interrupted by a frenzied shriek
from Henriette. The three turned, horrified, just in time to see
her fall forward upon the floor, convulsed.
"My God!" cried George. He sprang toward her, and tried to lift
her, but she shrank from him, repelling him with a gesture of
disgust, of hatred, of the most profound terror. "Don't touch
me!" she screamed, like a maniac. "Don't touch me!"
CHAPTER V
It was in vain that Madame Dupont sought to control her daughter-
in-law. Henriette was beside herself, frantic, she could not be
brought to listen to any one. She rushed into the other room,
and when the older woman followed her, shrieked out to be left
alone. Afterwards, she fled to her own room and barred herself
in, and George and his mother waited distractedly for hours until
she should give some sign.
Would she kill herself, perhaps? Madame Dupont hovered on guard
about the door of the nursery for fear that the mother in her fit
of insanity might attempt some harm to her child.
The nurse had slunk away abashed when she saw the consequences of
her outburst.
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