The day was Sunday,—­a day on which there was no Bourse and no business to be done.  The reunited pair passed the whole day together, getting farther into each other’s hearts than they ever yet had done, like two children who in a moment of fear, hold each other closely and cling together, united by an instinct.  There are in this life of two-in-one completely happy days, the gift of chance, ephemeral flowers, born neither of yesterday nor belonging to the morrow.  Jules and Clemence now enjoyed this day as though they forboded it to be the last of their loving life.  What name shall we give to that mysterious power which hastens the steps of travellers before the storm is visible; which makes the life and beauty of the dying so resplendent, and fills the parting soul with joyous projects for days before death comes; which tells the midnight student to fill his lamp when it shines brightest; and makes the mother fear the thoughtful look cast upon her infant by an observing man?  We all are affected by this influence in the great catastrophes of life; but it has never yet been named or studied; it is something more than presentiment, but not as yet clear vision.

All went well till the following day.  On Monday, Jules Desmarets, obliged to go to the Bourse on his usual business, asked his wife, as usual, if she would take advantage of his carriage and let him drive her anywhere.

“No,” she said, “the day is too unpleasant to go out.”

It was raining in torrents.  At half-past two o’clock Monsieur Desmarets reached the Treasury.  At four o’clock, as he left the Bourse, he came face to face with Monsieur de Maulincour, who was waiting for him with the nervous pertinacity of hatred and vengeance.

“Monsieur,” he said, taking Monsieur Desmarets by the arm, “I have important information to give you.  Listen to me.  I am too loyal a man to have recourse to anonymous letters with which to trouble your peace of mind; I prefer to speak to you in person.  Believe me, if my very life were not concerned, I should not meddle with the private affairs of any household, even if I thought I had the right to do so.”

“If what you have to say to me concerns Madame Desmarets,” replied Jules, “I request you to be silent, monsieur.”

“If I am silent, monsieur, you may before long see Madame Jules on the prisoner’s bench at the court of assizes beside a convict.  Now, do you wish me to be silent?”

Jules turned pale; but his noble face instantly resumed its calmness, though it was now a false calmness.  Drawing the baron under one of the temporary sheds of the Bourse, near which they were standing, he said to him in a voice which concealed his intense inward emotion:—­

“Monsieur, I will listen to you; but there will be a duel to the death between us if—­”

“Oh, to that I consent!” cried Monsieur de Maulincour.  “I have the greatest esteem for your character.  You speak of death.  You are unaware that your wife may have assisted in poisoning me last Saturday night.  Yes, monsieur, since then some extraordinary evil has developed in me.  My hair appears to distil an inward fever and a deadly languor through my skull; I know who clutched my hair at that ball.”