She was just at that moment standing at the window, gazing with longing eyes at the house where the receiver of taxes lived.

She had felt a desire to do so, for in her mind the idea of triumph was always associated with envy of that fine house.
"So Monsieur Peirotte is arrested!" she exclaimed in a strange tone as she turned round.
For an instant she smiled complacently; then a crimson blush rushed to her face.

A murderous wish had just ascended from the depths of her being.

"Ah! if the insurgents would only kill him!" Pierre no doubt read her thoughts in her eyes.
"Well, if some ball were to hit him," he muttered, "our business would be settled.

There would be no necessity to supercede him, eh?
and it would be no fault of ours." But Felicite shuddered.