If the letter lied in this instance, he would treat it with the scorn it deserved.  If, on the other hand, it should prove to be true!

At this moment, the servant announced breakfast; and M. Fauvel looked in the glass before leaving his study, to see if his face betrayed the emotion he felt.  He was shocked at the haggard features which it reflected.

“Have I no nerve?” he said to himself:  “oh!  I must and shall control my feelings until I find out the truth.”

At table he talked incessantly, so as to escape any questions from his wife, who, he saw, was uneasy at the sight of his pale face.

But, all the time he was talking, he was casting over in his mind expedients of getting his wife out of the house long enough for him to search her bureau.

At last he asked Mme. Fauvel if she were going out before dinner.

“Yes,” said she:  “the weather is dreadful, but Madeleine and I must do some shopping.”

“At what time shall you go?”

“Immediately after breakfast.”

He drew a long breath as if relieved of a great weight.

In a short time he would know the truth.

His uncertainty was so torturing to the unhappy man that he preferred the most dreadful reality to his present agony.

Breakfast over, he lighted a cigar, but did not remain in the dining-room to smoke it, as was his habit.  He went into his study to try and compose his nerves.

He took the precaution to send Lucien on a message so as to be alone in the house.

After the lapse of half an hour, he heard the carriage roll away with his wife and niece.

Hurrying into Mme. Fauvel’s room, he opened the drawer of the chiffonnier, where she kept her jewels.

The last dozen or more leather and velvet boxes, containing superb sets of jewelry which he had presented to her, were gone!

Twelve boxes remained.  He nervously opened them.

They were all empty!

The anonymous letter had told the truth.

“Oh, it cannot be!” he gasped in broken tones.  “Oh, no, no!”

He wildly pulled open every drawer in the vain hope of finding them packed away.  Perhaps she kept them elsewhere.

He tried to hope that she had sent them to be reset; but no, they were all superbly set in the latest fashion; and, moreover, she never would have sent them all at once.  He looked again.

Nothing! not one jewel could he find.

He remembered that he had asked his wife at the Jandidier ball why she did not wear her diamonds; and she had replied with a smile: 

“Oh! what is the use?  Everybody knows them so well; and, besides, they don’t suit my costume.”

Yes, she had made the answer without blushing, without showing the slightest sign of agitation or shame.

What hardened impudence!  What base hypocrisy concealed beneath an innocent, confiding manner!