Downstairs the doors of the house stood open, but as she mounted to the
first floor her sick feet failed her, and she was hesitating as to
which way to go when suddenly horror-stricken cries directed her. Then
upstairs she found a man lying on the floor with bloodstained shirt. It
was Georges--it was her other child.
Nana, in idiotic tones, kept saying:
"He wanted to marry me, and I said no, and he's killed himself."
Uttering no cry, Mme Hugon stooped down. Yes, it was the other one; it
was Georges. The one was brought to dishonor, the other murdered! It
caused her no surprise, for her whole life was ruined. Kneeling on the
carpet, utterly forgetting where she was, noticing no one else, she
gazed fixedly at her boy's face and listened with her hand on his heart.
Then she gave a feeble sigh--she had felt the heart beating. And with
that she lifted her head and scrutinized the room and the woman and
seemed to remember. A fire glowed forth in her vacant eyes, and she
looked so great and terrible in her silence that Nana trembled as she
continued to defend herself above the body that divided them.
"I swear it, madame! If his brother were here he could explain it to
you."
"His brother has robbed--he is in prison," said the mother in a hard
voice.
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