In a moment Madame Desvarennes was out of the carriage.  The guilty couple fled down a path.  Without caring what might be said of her, and goaded on by a fearful rage, she tried to follow them.  She especially wished to see the woman who was closely veiled.  She guessed her to be Jeanne.  But the younger woman, terrified, fled like a deer down a side walk.  Madame Desvarennes, quite out of breath, was obliged to stop.  She heard the slamming of a carriage-door, and a hired brougham that had been waiting at the end of the path swept by her bearing the lovers toward the town.

The mistress hesitated a moment, then said to her coachman: 

“Drive home.”  And, abandoning her business, she arrived in the Rue Saint-Dominique a few minutes after the Prince.

With a bound, without going through the offices, without even taking off her bonnet and cloak, she went up to Serge’s apartments.  Without hesitating, she entered the smoking-room.

Panine was there.  Evidently he was expecting her.  On seeing Madame Desvarennes he rose, with a smile: 

“One can see that you are at home,” said he, ironically; “you come in without knocking.”

“No nonsense; the moment is ill-chosen,” briefly retorted the mistress.  “Why did you run away when you saw me a little while ago?”

“You have such a singular way of accosting people,” he answered, lightly.  “You come on like a charge of cavalry.  The person with whom I was talking was frightened, she ran away and I followed her.”

“She was doing wrong then if she was frightened.  Does she know me?”

“Who does not know you?  You are almost notorious—­in the corn-market!”

Madame Desvarennes allowed the insult to pass without remark, and advancing toward Serge, said: 

“Who is this woman?”

“Shall I introduce her to you?” inquired the Prince, quietly.  “She is one of my countrywomen, a Polish—­”

“You are a liar!” cried Madame Desvarennes, unable to control her temper any longer.  “You are lying most impudently!”

And she was going to add, “That woman was Jeanne!” but prudence checked the sentence on her lips.

Serge turned pale.

“You forget yourself strangely, Madame,” he said, in a dry tone.

“I forgot myself a year ago, not now!  It was when I was weak that I forgot myself.  When Micheline was between you and me I neither dared to speak nor act.

“But now, since after almost ruining my poor daughter, you deceive her, I have no longer any consideration for you.  To make her come over to my side I have only to speak one word.”

“Well, speak it!  She is there.  I will call her!”

Madame Desvarennes, in that supreme moment, was assailed by a doubt.  What if Micheline, in her blind love, did not believe her?

She raised her hand to stop Serge.

“Will not the fear of killing my daughter by this revelation stay you?” asked she, bitterly.  “What manner of man are you to have so little heart and conscience?”