Well, Sir, the day came when I was taken from my prison-cell for the purpose of being confronted with the man whom I was accused of having assaulted.  As you will imagine, I was perfectly calm.  According to our plan the confrontation would be the means of setting me free at once.  I was conveyed to the house in the Rue de Grammont, and here I was kept waiting for some little time while the juge d’instruction went in to prepare M. le Marquis, who was still far from well.  Then I was introduced into the sick-room.  I looked about me with the perfect composure of an innocent man about to be vindicated, and calmly gazed on the face of the sick man who was sitting up in his magnificent bed, propped up with pillows.

I met his glance firmly whilst M. le Juge d’instruction placed the question to him in a solemn and earnest tone: 

“M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour, will you look at the prisoner before you and tell us whether you recognize in him the man who assaulted you?”

And that perfidious Marquis, Sir, raised his eyes and looked me squarely—­yes! squarely—­in the face and said with incredible assurance: 

“Yes, Monsieur le Juge, that is the man!  I recognize him.”

To me it seemed then as if a thunderbolt had crashed through the ceiling and exploded at my feet.  I was like one stunned and dazed; the black ingratitude, the abominable treachery, completely deprived me of speech.  I felt choked, as if some poisonous effluvia—­the poison, Sir, of that man’s infamy—­had got into my throat.  That state of inertia lasted, I believe, less than a second; the next I had uttered a hoarse cry of noble indignation.

“You vampire, you!” I exclaimed.  “You viper!  You . . .”

I would have thrown myself on him and strangled him with glee, but that the minions of the law had me by the arms and dragged me away out of the hateful presence of that traitor, despite my objurgations and my protestations of innocence.  Imagine my feelings when I found myself once more in a prison-cell, my heart filled with unspeakable bitterness against that perfidious Judas.  Can you wonder that it took me some time before I could collect my thoughts sufficiently to review my situation, which no doubt to the villain himself who had just played me this abominable trick must have seemed desperate indeed?  Ah!  I could see it all, of course!  He wanted to> see me sent to New Caledonia, whilst he enjoyed the fruits of his unpardonable backsliding.  In order to retain the miserable hundred thousand francs which he had promised me he did not hesitate to plunge up to the neck in this heinous conspiracy.