When he recovered consciousness, he was sitting on the cushioned bench on which the workmen sat huddled together on pay-day, his cloak on the floor, his cravat untied, his shirt open at the neck, cut by Sigismond’s knife.  Luckily for him, he had cut his hands when he tore the grating apart; the blood had flowed freely, and that accident was enough to avert an attack of apoplexy.  On opening his eyes, he saw on either side old Sigismond and Madame Georges, whom the cashier had summoned in his distress.  As soon as Risler could speak, he said to her in a choking voice: 

“Is this true, Madame Chorche—­is this true that he just told me?”

She had not the courage to deceive him, so she turned her eyes away.

“So,” continued the poor fellow, “so the house is ruined, and I—­”

“No, Risler, my friend.  No, not you.”

“My wife, was it not?  Oh! it is horrible!  This is how I have paid my debt of gratitude to you.  But you, Madame Chorche, you could not have believed that I was a party to this infamy?”

“No, my friend, no; be calm.  I know that you are the most honorable man on earth.”

He looked at her a moment, with trembling lips and clasped hands, for there was something child-like in all the manifestations of that artless nature.

“Oh!  Madame Chorche, Madame Chorche,” he murmured.  “When I think that I am the one who has ruined you.”

In the terrible blow which overwhelmed him, and by which his heart, overflowing with love for Sidonie, was most deeply wounded, he refused to see anything but the financial disaster to the house of Fromont, caused by his blind devotion to his wife.  Suddenly he stood erect.

“Come,” he said, “let us not give way to emotion.  We must see about settling our accounts.”

Madame Fromont was frightened.

“Risler, Risler—­where are you going?”

She thought that he was going up to Georges’ room.

Risler understood her and smiled in superb disdain.

“Never fear, Madame.  Monsieur Georges can sleep in peace.  I have something more urgent to do than avenge my honor as a husband.  Wait for me here.  I will come back.”

He darted toward the narrow staircase; and Claire, relying upon his word, remained with Planus during one of those supreme moments of uncertainty which seem interminable because of all the conjectures with which they are thronged.

A few moments later the sound of hurried steps, the rustling of silk filled the dark and narrow staircase.  Sidonie appeared first, in ball costume, gorgeously arrayed and so pale that the jewels that glistened everywhere on her dead-white flesh seemed more alive than she, as if they were scattered over the cold marble of a statue.  The breathlessness due to dancing, the trembling of intense excitement and her rapid descent, caused her to shake from head to foot, and her floating ribbons, her ruffles, her flowers, her rich and fashionable attire drooped tragically about her.  Risler followed her, laden with jewel-cases, caskets, and papers.  Upon reaching his apartments he had pounced upon his wife’s desk, seized everything valuable that it contained, jewels, certificates, title-deeds of the house at Asnieres; then, standing in the doorway, he had shouted into the ballroom: