Jean Jacques went on thinking in a strange, new, intense abstraction. His
restless eyes were steadier than they had ever been; his wife noticed
that as he entered the house after the Revelation. She noticed also his
paleness and his abstraction. For an instant she was frightened; but no,
Jean Jacques could not know anything. Yet--yet he had come from the
direction of the river!
"What is it, Jean Jacques?" she asked. "Aren't you well?"
He put his hand to his head, but did not look her in the eyes. His
gesture helped him to avoid that. "I have a head--la, such a head! I have
been thinking, thinking-it is my hobby. I have been planning the
cheese-factory, and all at once it comes on-the ache in my head. I will
go to bed. Yes, I will go at once." Suddenly he turned at the door
leading to the bedroom. "The little Zoe--is she well?"
"Of course. Why should she not be well? She has gone to the top of the
hill. Of course, she's well, Jean Jacques."
"Good-good!" he remarked. Somehow it seemed strange to him that Zoe
should be well. Was there not a terrible sickness in his house, and had
not that woman, his wife, her mother, brought the infection? Was he
himself not stricken by it?
Carmen was calm enough again. "Go to bed, Jean Jacques," she said, "and
I'll bring you a sleeping posset. I know those headaches. You had one
when the ash-factory was burned.
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