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“Monsieur,” I said to him, “there are moments when all hatred must cease.”

He turned his venerable face towards me with a bewildered look.

I resumed:

“Your niece is dying!”

“My niece! But I have no niece; you are mistaken.”

“Oh, Sir! I implore you, lay aside all foolish family rancour. I am speaking of Madame Deloche, the wife of Captain—-“

“I do not know Madame Deloche. You are mistaken, my son, I assure you.”

And he gently pushed me toward the door, taking me for a hoaxer or a madman. I must in fact have appeared very odd. What I heard was so unexpected, so terrible. She had lied to me then. Wherefore?

Suddenly an idea flashed across me. I directed the cabman to drive me to the address of one of those pupils of whom she had so often spoken to me, the daughter of a well-known banker.

I inquired of the servant: “Madame Deloche?”

“There is no one here of that name.”

“Yes, I know that. It is a lady who gives music lessons to your young ladies.”

“We have no young ladies here, not even a piano. I don’t know what you mean.”

And he angrily shut the door in my face.

I made no further inquiries. I felt sure of meeting with the same answer, the same disappointment. On my return to our little house, they gave me a letter with the postmark of Saint-Germain. I opened it, instinctively guessing the contents. The Chief Ranger also had no knowledge of Madame Deloche. Moreover he had neither wife nor child.

This was the last blow. Thus for five years each of her words had been a lie. A thousand jealous thoughts took possession of me, and madly, hardly knowing what I was about, I entered the room in which she was dying. All the questions that were torturing me burst forth over that bed of suffering: “Why did you go to Saint-Germain on Sundays? Where did you spend your days? Where did you spend that night? Come, answer me.” And I bent over her, seeking in the depths of her still proud and beautiful eyes answers that I awaited with anguish; but she remained mute and impassive.

I resumed, trembling with rage: “You never gave any lessons. I have been everywhere. Nobody knows you. Whence came that money, those laces, those jewels?” She threw me a glance full of despairing sadness, and that was all. In truth, I ought to have spared her, and allowed her to die in peace. But I had loved her too well. My jealousy was stronger than my pity. I continued: “For five years you have deceived me, lying to me every day, every hour. You knew my whole life, and I knew nothing of yours. Nothing, not even your name. For it is not yours, is it, the name you bear? Ah liar! liar! What, she is going to die, and I do not even know by what name to call her! Come, tell me who you are? Whence come you? Why did you intrude into my life? Speak! Tell me something!”

Vain efforts! Instead of answering, she with difficulty turned her face to the wall, as though she feared that her last glance might betray her secret. And thus the unhappy creature died! Died without a word, liar to the last.