Chapter 7

Julia stood in their midst. Her face was pale, and she was unable to utter a word. When her relatives noticed that she was unresponsive, they grew anxious and began shoving her rudely. The hands that had pushed and pinched me now fell upon Julia. They shoved her from side to side without restraint.

"Enough! I said I wanted to go after the mistress, alright. But you all came along because you wanted to cozy up to Claude!" Julia retorted loudly in frustration as the blame began to pile up on her.

Her voice rose, and she continued, "You're all just scared that you won't get to benefit from Claude once he dumps me for his mistress. It's too late to shift all the blame to me now. If I'm going down, we're all going down together."

She turned on her aunts and berated them. "And who suggested humiliating the mistress, putting up banners, stripping her, and parading her around? Wasn't it you lot?"

Her words sent the crowd over the edge, and the scene devolved into chaos.

"What did you say?