LITMIR.BIZ

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a moment she thought of throwing herself at her husband’s feet and confessing all.

      Unfortunately, she thrust aside this means of salvation. She pictured to herself the mortification and sorrow that her noble-hearted husband would suffer upon discovering, after a lapse of twenty years, how shamefully he had been deceived, how his confidence and love had been betrayed.

      Having been once deceived, would he ever trust her again? Would he believe in her fidelity as a wife, when he discovered that she had uttered her marriage vows to love and honor him, when her heart was already given to another?

      She knew Andre was too magnanimous to ever allude to her horrible fault, and would use every means to conceal it. But his domestic happiness would be gone forever. His chair at the fireside would be left empty; his sons would shun her presence, and every family bond would be severed.

      Then again, would peace be preserved by her silence? Would not Clameran end by betraying her to Andre?

      She thought of ending her doubts by suicide; but her death would not silence her implacable enemy, who, not being able to disgrace her while alive, would dishonor her memory.

      Fortunately, the banker was still absent; and, during the two days succeeding Louis’s visit, Mme. Fauvel could keep her room under pretence of sickness.

      But Madeleine, with her feminine instinct, saw that her aunt was troubled by something worse than nervous headache, for which the physician was prescribing all sorts of remedies, with no beneficial effect.

      She remembered that this sudden illness dated from the visit of the melancholy looking stranger, who had been closeted for a long time with her aunt.

      Madeleine supposed something was weighing upon the miserable woman’s mind, and the second day of her sickness ventured to say:

      “What makes you so sad, dear aunt? If you will not tell me, do let me bring our good cure to see you.”

      With a sharpness foreign to her nature, which was gentleness itself, Mme. Fauvel refused to assent to her niece’s proposition.

      What Louis calculated upon happened.

      After long reflection, not seeing any issue to her deplorable situation, Mme. Fauvel determined to yield.

      By consenting to everything demanded of her, she had a chance of saving her husband from suffering and disgrace.

      She well knew that to act thus was to prepare a life of torture for herself; but she alone would be the victim, and, at any rate, she would be gaining time. Heaven might at last interpose, and save her from ruin.

      In the meantime, M. Fauvel had returned home, and Valentine resumed her accustomed duties.

      But she was no longer the happy mother and devoted wife, whose smiling presence was wont to fill the house with sunshine and comfort. She was melancholy, anxious, and at times irritable.

      Hearing nothing of Clameran, she expected to see him appear at any moment; trembling at every knock, and turning pale when a strange step was heard to enter, she dared not leave the house, for fear he should come during her absence.

      Her agony was like that of a condemned man, who, each day as he wakes from his uneasy slumber, asks himself, “Am I to die to-day?”

      Clameran did not come; he wrote, or rather, as he was too prudent to furnish arms which could be used against him, he had a note written, which Mme. Fauvel alone might understand, in which he said that he was quite ill, and unable to call upon her; and hoped she would be so good as to come to his room the next day; she had only to ask for 317, Hotel du Louvre.

      The letter was almost a relief for Mme. Fauvel. Anything was preferable to suspense. She was ready to consent to everything.

      She burned the letter, and said, “I shall go.”

      The next day at the appointed hour, she dressed herself in a plain black silk, a large bonnet which concealed her face, and, putting a thick veil in her pocket to be used if she found it necessary, started forth.

      After hurriedly walking several squares, she thought she might, without fear of being recognized, call a coach. In a few minutes she was set down at the Hotel du Louvre. Here her uneasiness increased. Her circle of acquaintances being large, she was in terror of being recognized. What would her friends think if they saw her at the Hotel du Louvre disguised in this old dress?

      Anyone would naturally suspect an intrigue, a rendezvous; and her character would be ruined forever.

      This was the first time since her marriage that she had had occasion for mystery; and her efforts to escape notice were in every way calculated to attract attention.

      The porter said that the Marquis of Clameran’s rooms were on the third floor.

      She hurried up the stairs, glad to escape the scrutinizing glances of several men standing near; but, in spite of the minute directions given by the porter, she lost her way in one of the long corridors of the hotel.

      Finally, after wandering about for some time, she found a door bearing the number sought—317.

      She stood leaning against the wall with her hand pressed to her throbbing heart, which seemed bursting.

      Now, at the moment of risking this decisive step, she felt paralyzed with fright. She would have given all she possessed to find herself safe in her own home.

      The sight of a stranger entering the corridor ended her hesitation.

      With a trembling hand she knocked at the door.

      “Come in,” said a voice from within.

      She entered the room.

      It was not the Marquis of Clameran who stood in the middle of the room, but a young man, almost a youth, who bowed to Mme. Fauvel with a singular expression on his handsome face.

      Mme. Fauvel thought that she had mistaken the room.

      “Excuse me, monsieur,” she said, blushing deeply. “I thought that this was the Marquis of Clameran’s room.”

      “It is his room, madame,” replied the young man; then, seeing she was silent and about to leave, he added:

      “I presume I have the honor of addressing Mme. Fauvel?”

      She bowed affirmatively, shuddering at the sound of her own name, frightened at this proof of Clameran’s betrayal of her secret to a stranger.

      With visible anxiety she awaited an explanation.

      “Reassure yourself, madame,” said the young man: “you are as safe here as if you were in your own house. M. de Clameran desired me to make his excuses; he will not have the honor of seeing you to-day.”

      “But, monsieur, from an urgent letter sent by him yesterday, I was led to suppose—to infer—that he——”

      “When he wrote to you, madame, he had projects in view which he has since renounced.”

      Mme. Fauvel was too agitated and troubled to think clearly. Beyond the present she could see nothing.

      “Do you mean,” she asked with distrust, “that he has changed his intentions?”

      The young man’s face was expressive of sad compassion, as if he shared the sufferings of the unhappy woman before him.

      “The marquis has renounced,” he said, in a melancholy tone, “what he wrongly considered a sacred duty. Believe me, he hesitated a long time before he could decide to apply to you on a subject painful to you both. When he began to explain his apparent intrusion upon your private affairs, you refused to hear him, and dismissed him with indignant contempt. He knew not what imperious reasons dictated your conduct. Blinded by unjust anger, he swore to obtain by threats what you refused to give voluntarily. Resolved to attack your domestic happiness, he had collected overwhelming proofs against you. Pardon him: an oath given to his dying brother bound him.

      “These convincing proofs,” he continued, as he

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