The countess seemed to be utterly bewildered.

“But that is sheer infamy, sir,” she stammered.  “What!  M. de Boiscoran should have dared tell you that I, the countess Claudieuse, have been his—­mistress?”

“He certainly said so, madam; and he affirms, that a few moments before the fire broke out, he was near you, and that, if his hands were blackened, it was because he had burned your letters and his.”

She rose at these words, and said in a penetrating voice,—­

“And you could believe that,—­you?  Ah!  M. de Boiscoran’s other crimes are nothing in comparison with this!  He is not satisfied with having burnt our house, and ruined us:  he means to dishonor us.  He is not satisfied with having murdered my husband:  he must ruin the honor of his wife also.”

She spoke so loud, that her voice must have been distinctly heard in the vestibule.

“Lower, madam, I pray you speak lower,” said M. Folgat.

She cast upon him a crushing glance; and, raising her voice still higher, she went on,—­

“Yes, I understand very well that you are afraid of being heard.  But I—­what have I to fear?  I could wish the whole world to hear us, and to judge between us.  Lower, you say?  Why should I speak less loud?  Do you think that if Count Claudieuse were not on his death-bed, this letter would not have long since been in his hands?  Ah, he would soon have satisfaction for such an infamous letter, he!  But I, a poor woman!  I have never seen so clearly that the world thinks my husband is lost already, and that I am alone in this world, without a protector, without friends.”

“But, madam, M. de Boiscoran pledges himself to the most perfect secrecy.”

“Secrecy in what?  In your cowardly insults, your abominable plots, of which this, no doubt, is but a beginning?”

M. Folgat turned livid under this insult.

“Ah, take care, madam,” he said in a hoarse voice:  “we have proof, absolute, overwhelming proof.”

The countess stopped him by an imperious gesture, and with the haughtiest disdain, grief, and wrath, she said,—­

“Well, then, produce your proof.  Go, hasten, act as you like.  We shall see if the vile calumnies of an incendiary can stain the pure reputation of an honest woman.  We shall see if a single speck of this mud in which you wallow can reach up to me.”

And, throwing Jacques’s letter at M. Folgat’s feet, she went to the door.

“Madam,” said M. Folgat once more,—­“madam!”

She did not even condescend to turn round:  she disappeared, leaving him standing in the middle of the room, so overcome with amazement, that he could not collect his thoughts.  Fortunately Dr. Seignebos came in.

“Upon my word!” he said, “I never thought the countess would take my treachery so coolly.  When she came out from you just now, she asked me, in the same tone as every day, how I had found her husband, and what was to be done.  I told her”—­