“What did you see?  Are you hurt?” he whispered.

But Prosper had already risen.  Although he had had a violent fall, he was unhurt; he was in a state when mind governs matter so absolutely that the body is insensible to pain.

“I saw,” he answered in a hoarse voice, “I saw Madeleine—­do you understand, Madeleine—­in that room, alone with Raoul!”

M. Verduret was confounded.  Was it possible that he, the infallible expert, had been mistaken in his deductions?

He well knew that M. de Lagors’s visitor was a woman; but his own conjectures, and the note which Mme. Gypsy had sent to him at the tavern, had fully assured him that this woman was Mme. Fauvel.

“You must be mistaken,” he said to Prosper.

“No, monsieur, no.  Never could I mistake another for Madeleine.  Ah! you who heard what she said to me yesterday, answer me:  was I to expect such infamous treason as this?  You said to me then, ’She loves you, she loves you!’ Now do you think she loves me? speak!”

M. Verduret did not answer.  He had first been stupefied by his mistake, and was now racking his brain to discover the cause of it, which was soon discerned by his penetrating mind.

“This is the secret discovered by Nina,” continued Prosper.  “Madeleine, this pure and noble Madeleine, whom I believed to be as immaculate as an angel, is in love with this thief, who has even stolen the name he bears; and I, trusting fool that I was, made this scoundrel my best friend.  I confided to him all my hopes and fears; and he was her lover!  Of course they amused themselves by ridiculing my silly devotion and blind confidence!”

He stopped, overcome by his violent emotions.  Wounded vanity is the worst of miseries.  The certainty of having been so shamefully deceived and betrayed made Prosper almost insane with rage.

“This is the last humiliation I shall submit to,” he fiercely cried.  “It shall not be said that I was coward enough to stand by and let an insult like this go unpunished.”

He started toward the house; but M. Verduret seized his arm and said: 

“What are you going to do?”

“Have my revenge!  I will break down the door; what do I care for the noise and scandal, now that I have nothing to lose?  I shall not attempt to creep into the house like a thief, but as a master, as one who has a right to enter; as a man who, having received an insult which can only be washed out with blood, comes to demand satisfaction.”

“You will do nothing of the sort, Prosper.”

“Who will prevent me?”

“I will.”

“You? do not hope that you will be able to deter me.  I will appear before them, put them to the blush, kill them both, then put an end to my own wretched existence.  That is what I intend to do, and nothing shall stop me!”

If M. Verduret had not held Prosper with a vice-like grip, he would have escaped, and carried out his threat.