M. Magloire drew up a chair, and sitting down, not as usually, but across the chair, and resting his arms on the back, he said,—­

“I listen.”

Jacques de Boiscoran, who had been almost livid, became crimson with anger.  His eyes flashed wrath.  That he, he should be treated thus!  Never had all the haughtiness of M. Galpin offended him half as much as this cool, disdainful condescension on the part of M. Magloire.  It occurred to him to order him out of his room.  But what then?  He was condemned to drain the bitter cup to the very dregs:  for he must save himself; he must get out of this abyss.

“You are cruel, Magloire,” he said in a voice of ill-suppressed indignation, “and you make me feel all the horrors of my situation to the full.  Ah, do not apologize!  It does not matter.  Let me speak.”

He walked up and down a few times in his cell, passing his hand repeatedly over his brow, as if to recall his memory.  Then he began, in a calmer tone of voice,—­

“It was in the first days of the month of August, in 1866, and at Boiscoran, where I was on a visit to my uncle, that I saw the Countess Claudieuse for the first time.  Count Claudieuse and my uncle were, at that time, on very bad terms with each other, thanks to that unlucky little stream which crosses our estates; and a common friend, M. de Besson, had undertaken to reconcile them at a dinner to which he had invited both.  My uncle had taken me with him.  The countess had come with her husband.  I was just twenty years old; she was twenty-six.  When I saw her, I was overcome.  It seemed to me that I had never in all my life met a woman so perfectly beautiful and graceful; that I had never seen so charming a face, such beautiful eyes, and such a sweet smile.

“She did not seem to notice me.  I did not speak to her; and still I felt within me a kind of presentiment that this woman would play a great, a fatal part in my life.

“This impression was so strong, that, as we left the house, I could not keep from mentioning it to my uncle.  He only laughed, and said that I was a fool, and that, if my existence should ever be troubled by a woman, it would certainly not be by the Countess Claudieuse.

“He was apparently right.  It was hard to imagine that any thing should ever again bring me in contact with the countess.  M. de Besson’s attempt at reconciliation had utterly failed; the countess lived at Valpinson; and I went back to Paris.

“Still I was unable to shake off the impression; and the memory of the dinner at M. de Besson’s house was still in my mind, when a month later, at a party at my mother’s brother’s, M. de Chalusse, I thought I recognized the Countess Claudieuse.  It was she.  I bowed, and, seeing that she recognized me, I went up to her, trembling, and she allowed me to sit down by her.

“She told me then that she had come up to Paris for a month, as she did every year, and that she was staying at her father’s, the Marquis de Tassar.  She had come to this party much against her inclination, as she disliked going out.  She did not dance; and thus I talked to her till the moment when she left.