“Of course he is, and so am I too.  The only thing is, that we both need money.”

“You are telling a falsehood, Raoul!”

“Upon my soul, I am not.  Madeleine rejected Prosper, and the poor fellow has to console himself for her cruelty; and these sorts of consolations are expensive, my good mother.”

He took up the candle, and gently but firmly led Mme. Fauvel toward the staircase.

She mechanically suffered herself to be led along, more bewildered by what she had just heard than she was at the opening of the safe-door.

“What!” she gasped, “can Prosper be a thief?”

She began to think herself the victim of a terrible nightmare, and that, when she waked, her mind would be relieved of this intolerable torture.  She helplessly clung to Raoul’s arm as he helped her up the narrow little staircase.

“You must put the key back in the secretary,” said Raoul, as soon as they were in the chamber again.

But she did not seem to hear him; so he went and replaced the safe-key in the place from which he had seen her take it.

He then led, or rather carried, Mme. Fauvel into the little sitting-room, and placed her in an easy-chair.

The set, expressionless look of the wretched woman’s eyes, and her dazed manner, frightened Raoul, who thought that she had lost her mind, that her reason had finally given way beneath this last terrible shock.

“Come, cheer up, my dear mother,” he said in coaxing tones as he rubbed her icy hands; “you have saved my life, and rendered an immense service to Prosper.  Don’t be alarmed; everything will come out right in the end.  Prosper will be accused, perhaps arrested; he expects that, and is prepared for it; he will deny his culpability; and, as there is no proof against him, he will be set at liberty immediately.”

But these falsehoods were wasted on Mme. Fauvel, who was incapable of understanding anything said to her.

“Raoul,” she moaned in a broken-hearted tone, “Raoul, my son, you have killed me.”

Her gentle voice, kind even in its despairing accents, touched the very bottom of Raoul’s perverted heart, and once more his soul was wrung by remorse; so that he felt inclined to put back the stolen money, and comfort the despairing woman whose life and reason he was destroying.  The thought of Clameran restrained him.

Finding his efforts to restore Mme. Fauvel fruitless, that, in spite of all his affectionate regrets and promises, she still sat silent, motionless, and death-like; and fearing that M. Fauvel or Madeleine might enter at any moment, and demand an explanation, he hastily pressed a kiss upon his mother’s brow, and hurried from the house.

At the restaurant, in the room where they had dined, Clameran, tortured by anxiety, awaited his accomplice.

He wondered if at the last moment, when he was not near to sustain him, Raoul would prove a coward, and retreat; if any unforeseen trifle had prevented his finding the key; if any visitors were there; and, if so, would they depart before M. Fauvel’s return from the dinner-party?