“Where is madame?” he said.

“Madame is going to bed; her head aches,” replied the maid, assuming an air of importance.

Monsieur Jules then said to the footmen composedly:  “You can take away; I shall go and sit with madame.”

He went to his wife’s room and found her weeping, but endeavoring to smother her sobs with her handkerchief.

“Why do you weep?” said Jules; “you need expect no violence and no reproaches from me.  Why should I avenge myself?  If you have not been faithful to my love, it is that you were never worthy of it.”

“Not worthy?” The words were repeated amid her sobs and the accent in which they were said would have moved any other man than Jules.

“To kill you, I must love more than perhaps I do love you,” he continued.  “But I should never have the courage; I would rather kill myself, leaving you to your—­happiness, and with—­whom!—­”

He did not end his sentence.

“Kill yourself!” she cried, flinging herself at his feet and clasping them.

But he, wishing to escape the embrace, tried to shake her off, dragging her in so doing toward the bed.

“Let me alone,” he said.

“No, no, Jules!” she cried.  “If you love me no longer I shall die.  Do you wish to know all?”

“Yes.”

He took her, grasped her violently, and sat down on the edge of the bed, holding her between his legs.  Then, looking at that beautiful face now red as fire and furrowed with tears,—­

“Speak,” he said.

Her sobs began again.

“No; it is a secret of life and death.  If I tell it, I—­No, I cannot.  Have mercy, Jules!”

“You have betrayed me—­”

“Ah!  Jules, you think so now, but soon you will know all.”

“But this Ferragus, this convict whom you go to see, a man enriched by crime, if he does not belong to you, if you do not belong to him—­”

“Oh, Jules!”

“Speak!  Is he your mysterious benefactor?—­the man to whom we owe our fortune, as persons have said already?”

“Who said that?”

“A man whom I killed in a duel.”

“Oh, God! one death already!”

“If he is not your protector, if he does not give you money, if it is you, on the contrary, who carry money to him, tell me, is he your brother?”

“What if he were?” she said.

Monsieur Desmarets crossed his arms.

“Why should that have been concealed from me?” he said.  “Then you and your mother have both deceived me?  Besides, does a woman go to see her brother every day, or nearly every day?”

His wife had fainted at his feet.

“Dead,” he said.  “And suppose I am mistaken?”

He sprang to the bell-rope; called Josephine, and lifted Clemence to the bed.

“I shall die of this,” said Madame Jules, recovering consciousness.

“Josephine,” cried Monsieur Desmarets.  “Send for Monsieur Desplein; send also to my brother and ask him to come here immediately.”