Castanier, followed by the stranger, returned to his box; and in accordance with the order he had just received, he hastened to introduce Melmoth to Mme. de la Garde.  Aquilina seemed to be not in the least surprised.  The Englishman declined to take a seat in front, and Castanier was once more beside his mistress; the man’s slightest wish must be obeyed.  The last piece was about to begin, for, at that time, small theaters only gave three pieces.  One of the actors had made the Gymnase the fashion, and that evening Perlet (the actor in question) was to play in a vaudeville called Le Comedien d’Etampes, in which he filled four different parts.

When the curtain rose, the stranger stretched out his hand over the crowded house.  Castanier’s cry of terror died away, for the walls of his throat seemed glued together as Melmoth pointed to the stage, and the cashier knew that the play had been changed at the Englishman’s desire.

He saw the strong room at the bank; he saw the Baron de Nucingen in conference with a police officer from the prefecture, who was informing him of Castanier’s conduct, explaining that the cashier had absconded with money taken from the safe, giving the history of the forged signature.  The information was put in writing; the document signed and duly dispatched to the public prosecutor.

“Are we in time, do you think?” asked Nucingen.

“Yes,” said the agent of police; “he is at the Gymnase, and has no suspicion of anything.”

Castanier fidgeted on his chair, and made as if he would leave the theater, but Melmoth’s hand lay on his shoulder, and he was obliged to sit and watch; the hideous power of the man produced an effect like that of nightmare, and he could not move a limb.  Nay, the man himself was the nightmare; his presence weighed heavily on his victim like a poisoned atmosphere.  When the wretched cashier turned to implore the Englishman’s mercy, he met those blazing eyes that discharged electric currents, which pierced through him and transfixed him like darts of steel.

“What have I done to you?” he said, in his prostrate helplessness, and he breathed hard like a stag at the water’s edge.  “What do you want of me?”

“Look!” cried Melmoth.

Castanier looked at the stage.  The scene had been changed.  The play seemed to be over, and Castanier beheld himself stepping from the carriage with Aquilina; but as he entered the courtyard of the house in the Rue Richer, the scene again was suddenly changed, and he saw his own house.  Jenny was chatting by the fire in her mistress’s room with a subaltern officer of a line regiment then stationed at Paris.

“He is going, is he?” said the sergeant, who seemed to belong to a family in easy circumstances; “I can be happy at my ease!  I love Aquilina too well to allow her to belong to that old toad!  I, myself, am going to marry Mme. de la Garde!” cried the sergeant.