“Voleuse! voleuse! voleuse!” she heard her aunt’s voice lifted after her in a shrill scream. It followed her as far as the leafy road beyond the live oaks.
Madame Solisainte trembled with excitement and agitation. She looked into the bag and counted the keys. They were all there.
“Voleuse!” she kept muttering. She was convinced that Bosey had robbed her of everything she possessed. The jewels were gone, she was sure of it – all gone. Her mother’s watch and chain; bracelets, rings, ear-rings, everything gone. All the silver; the table, the bed linen, her mother’s clothes – ah! that was why she had brought those three trunks!
Madame Solisainte clutched the brass key and glared at it with eyes wild with apprehension. She pounded her stick upon the floor till the rafters rang. But at that time of the afternoon – the hours between dinner and supper – the yard was deserted. And Dimple, still under the delusion created by the red ruffles and puffed sleeves, was strolling leisurely toward the station to see Miss Bosey off.
Madame pounded and called. In her wrath she overturned the table and sent the books and magazines flying in all directions. She sat a while a prey to the most violent agitation, the most turbulent misgivings, that made the pulses throb in her head and the blood course through her body as though the devil himself were at the valve.
“Robbed! Robbed! Robbed!” she repeated. “My gold; the rings; the necklace! I might have known! Oh! fool! Ah! cher maître! pas possible!”
Her head quivered as with a palsy upon its fat bulk. She clutched the arm of her chair and attempted to rise; her effort was fruitless. A second attempt, and she drew herself a few inches out of the chair and fell back again. A third effort, in which her whole big body shook and swayed like a vessel which has sprung a leak, and Madame Solisainte stood upon her feet.
