Untroubled by the knowledge that his secret was discovered, Jaune entered upon the last day of his martyrdom.  It was the most agonizing day of all.  The benevolent persons, the reporters, the detectives, the crowd surging about him, drove him almost to madness.  He walked as one dazed.  And above and over all he was possessed by a frenzy of jealousy that came of the offensively friendly smiles which Rose bestowed upon him as she forced meetings upon him again and again.  It was with difficulty that he restrained himself from laying violent hands upon this bogus Marquis who falsely and infamously had beguiled away from him the love for which he gladly would have given his life.  Only the blood of his despicable rival, he felt, would satisfy him.  He longed to find himself with a sword in his hand on a bit of smooth turf, and the villanous Marquis over against him, ready to be run through.  The thought was so delightful, so animating, that involuntarily he made a lunge—­and had to apologize confusedly to an elderly gentleman whom he had poked in the back with his umbrella.

At last the three hours of torture, the last of his two weeks of hateful servitude, came to an end.  Pale beneath his false paleness, haggard beyond his false haggardness of age, he entered the clothing store and once more was himself.  With a gladness unspeakable he washed off his wrinkles and washed out the gray from his hair and beard; with a sense of infinite satisfaction that, a fortnight earlier, he would not have believed possible, he resumed his shabby old clothes.  Had he chosen to do so, he might have walked away in the new and magnificent apparel which he now fairly had earned; but just at present his loathing for these fine garments was beyond all words.

The tailor fain would have had the masquerade continue longer, for, as he frankly stated, “The Marquis Suit” was having a tremendous sale.  But Jaune was deaf not only to the tailor’s blandishments, but to his offers of substantial cash.  “Not for the millions would I be in this part of the Marquis for one day yet more,” he said firmly.  And he added, “I trust to you in honor, sare, that not never shall my name be spoken in this affair.”

“Couldn’t speak it if I wanted to, my dear boy.  It’s a mystery to me how you’re able to say it yourself!  Well, I’d like you to run the ‘Marquis’ for another week; but if you won’t, you won’t, I suppose, so there’s an end of it.  I’m sorry you haven’t enjoyed it.  I have.  It’s been as good a thing as I ever got hold of.  Now give me your address and I’ll have your clothes sent to you.  Don’t you want some more?  I don’t mind letting you have a regular outfit if you want it.  One good turn, you know—­and you’ve done me a good turn, and that’s a fact.”

But Jaune declined this liberal offer, and declined also to leave his address, which would have involved a revelation of his name.  It was a comfort to him to know that his name was safe—­a great comfort.  So the garments of the forever departed Marquis were put up in a big bundle, and Jaune journeyed homeward to his studio in Greenwich—­bearing his sheaves with him—­in a Bleecker Street car.