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At the instant when the gentleman turned the key to enter his wife’s room, he fancied he heard the door shut of the closet of which I have spoken; but when he went in, Madame de Merret was alone, standing in front of the fireplace. The unsuspecting husband fancied that Rosalie was in the cupboard; nevertheless, a doubt, ringing in his ears like a peal of bells, put him on his guard; he looked at his wife, and read in her eyes an indescribably anxious and haunted expression.

‘You are very late,’ said she.–Her voice, usually so clear and sweet, struck him as being slightly husky.

Monsieur de Merret made no reply, for at this moment Rosalie came in. This was like a thunder-clap. He walked up and down the room, going from one window to another at a regular pace, his arms folded.

‘Have you had bad news, or are you ill?’ his wife asked him timidly, while Rosalie helped her to undress. He made no reply.

‘You can go, Rosalie,’ said Madame de Merret to her maid; ‘I can put in my curl-papers myself.’–She scented disaster at the mere aspect of her husband’s face, and wished to be alone with him. As soon as Rosalie was gone, or supposed to be gone, for she lingered a few minutes in the passage, Monsieur de Merret came and stood facing his wife, and said coldly, ‘Madame, there is some one in your cupboard!’ She looked at her husband calmly, and replied quite simply, ‘No, monsieur.’

This ‘No’ wrung Monsieur de Merret’s heart; he did not believe it; and yet his wife had never appeared purer or more saintly than she seemed to be at this moment. He rose to go and open the closet door. Madame de Merret took his hand, stopped him, looked at him sadly, and said in a voice of strange emotion, ‘Remember, if you should find no one there, everything must be at an end between you and me.’

The extraordinary dignity of his wife’s attitude filled him with deep esteem for her, and inspired him with one of those resolves which need only a grander stage to become immortal.

‘No, Josephine,’ he said, ‘I will not open it. In either event we should be parted for ever. Listen; I know all the purity of your soul, I know you lead a saintly life, and would not commit a deadly sin to save your life.’–At these words Madame de Merret looked at her husband with a haggard stare.–‘See, here is your crucifix,’ he went on. ‘Swear to me before God that there is no one in there; I will believe you–I will never open that door.’

Madame de Merret took up the crucifix and said, ‘I swear it.’

‘Louder,’ said her husband; ‘and repeat: I swear before God that there is nobody in that closet.’ She repeated the words without flinching.

‘That will do,’ said Monsieur de Merret coldly. After a moment’s silence: ‘You have there a fine piece of work which I never saw before,’ said he, examining the crucifix of ebony and silver, very artistically wrought.

‘I found it at Duvivier’s; last year when that troop of Spanish prisoners came through Vendome, he bought it of a Spanish monk.’

‘Indeed,’ said Monsieur de Merret, hanging the crucifix on its nail; and he rang the bell.

He had to wait for Rosalie. Monsieur de Merret went forward quickly to meet her, led her into the bay of the window that looked on to the garden, and said to her in an undertone:

‘I know that Gorenflot wants to marry you, that poverty alone prevents your setting up house, and that you told him you would not be his wife till he found means to become a master mason.–Well, go and fetch him; tell him to come here with his trowel and tools. Contrive to wake no one in his house but himself. His reward will be beyond your wishes. Above all, go out without saying a word–or else!’ and he frowned.

Rosalie was going, and he called her back. ‘Here, take my latch-key,’ said he.

‘Jean!’ Monsieur de Merret called in a voice of thunder down the passage. Jean, who was both coachman and confidential servant, left his cards and came.