As M. Verduret had anticipated, Prosper's letter had a terrible effect upon M. Fauvel.
It was toward nine o'clock in the morning, and M. Fauvel had just entered his study when his mail was brought in.
After opening a dozen business letters, his eyes fell on the fatal missive sent by Prosper.
Something about the writing struck him as peculiar.
It was evidently a disguised hand, and although, owing to the fact of his being a millionnaire, he was in the habit of receiving anonymous communications, sometimes abusive, but generally begging him for money, this particular letter filled him with an indefinite presentiment of evil. A cold chill ran through his heart, and he dreaded to open it.
With absolute certainty that he was about to learn of a new calamity, he broke the seal, and opening the coarse cafe paper, was shocked by the following words:
"DEAR SIR--You have handed your cashier over to the law, and you acted properly, convinced as you were of his dishonesty.
"But if it was he who took three hundred and fifty thousand francs from your safe, was it he also who took Mme. Fauvel's diamonds?"
This was a terrible blow to a man whose life hitherto had been an unbroken chain of prosperity, who could recall the past without one bitter regret, without remembering any sorrow deep enough to bring forth a tear.
What! His wife deceive him! And among all men, to choose one vile enough to rob her of her jewels, and force her to be his accomplice in the ruin of an innocent young man!
For did not the letter before him assert this to be a fact, and tell him how to convince himself of its truth?
M. Fauvel was as bewildered as if he had been knocked on the head with a club. It was impossible for his scattered ideas to take in the enormity of what these dreadful words intimated. He seemed to be mentally and physically paralyzed, as he sat there staring blankly at the letter.
But this stupefaction suddenly changed to indignant rage.
"What a fool I am!" he cried, "to listen to such base lies, such malicious charges against the purest woman whom God ever sent to bless a man!"
And he angrily crumpled up the letter, and threw it into the empty fireplace, saying: "I will forget having read it. I will not soil my mind by letting it dwell upon such turpitude!"
He said this, and he thought it; but, for all that, he could not open the rest of his letters. The anonymous missive stood before his eyes in letters of fire, and drove every other thought from his mind.
That penetrating, clinging, all-corroding worm, suspicion, had taken possession of his soul; and as he leaned over his desk, with his face buried in his hands, thinking over many things which had lately occurred, insignificant at the time, but fearfully ominous now, this unwillingly admitted germ of suspicion grew and expanded until it became certainty.
But, resolved that he would not think of his wife in connection with so vile a deed, he imagined a thousand wild excuses for the mischief- maker who took this mode of annoying him; of course there was no truth in his assertions, but from curiosity he would like to know who had written it. And yet suppose----
"Merciful God! can it be true?" he wildly cried, as the idea of his wife's guilt would obstinately return to his troubled mind.
Thinking that the writing might throw some light on the mystery, he started up and tremblingly picked the fatal letter out of the ashes. Carefully smoothing it out, he laid it on his desk, and studied the heavy strokes, light strokes, and capitals of every word.
"It must be from some of my clerks," he finally said, "someone who is angry with me for refusing to raise his salary; or perhaps it is the one that I dismissed the other day."
Clinging to this idea, he thought over all the young men in his bank; but not one could he believe capable of resorting to so base a vengeance.
Then he wondered where the letter had been posted, thinking this might throw some light upon the mystery. He looked at the envelope, and read the post-mark:
"Rue du Cardinal Lemoine."
This fact told him nothing.
Once more he read the letter, spelling over each word, and trying to put a different construction on the horrible phrases that stared him in the face.
It is generally agreed that an anonymous letter should be treated with silent contempt, and cast aside as the malicious lies of a coward who dares not say to a man's face what he secretly commits to paper, and forces upon him.
This is all very well in theory, but is difficult to practise when the anonymous letter comes. You throw it in the fire, it burns; but, although the paper is destroyed by the flames, doubt remains. Suspicion arises from its ashes, like a subtle poison penetrates the inmost recesses of the mind, weakens its holiest beliefs, and destroys its faith. The trail of the serpent is left.
The wife suspected, no matter how unjustly, is no longer the wife in whom her husband trusted as he would trust himself: the pure being who was above suspicion no longer exists. Suspicion, no matter whence the source, has irrevocably tarnished the brightness of his idol.
Unable to struggle any longer against these conflicting doubts, M. Fauvel determined to resolve them by showing the letter to his wife; but a torturing thought, more terrible than any he had yet suffered, made him sink back in his chair in despair.
"Suppose it be true!" he muttered to himself; "suppose I have been miserably duped! By confiding in my wife, I shall put her on her guard, and lose all chance of discovering the truth."
Thus were realized all Verduret's presumptions.
He had said, "If M. Fauvel does not yield to his first impulse, if he stops to reflect, we have time to repair the harm done."
After long and painful meditation, the banker finally decided to wait, and watch his wife.
It was a hard struggle for a man of his frank, upright nature, to play the part of a domestic spy, and jealous husband.
Accustomed to give way to sudden bursts of anger, but quickly mastering them, he would find it difficult to be compelled to preserve his self-restraint, no matter how dreadful the discoveries might be. When he collected the proofs of guilt one by one, he must impose silence upon his resentment, until fully assured of possessing certain evidence.
There was one simple means of ascertaining whether the diamonds had been pawned.
If the letter lied in this instance, he would treat it with the scorn it deserved. If, on the other hand, it should prove to be true!
At this moment, the servant announced breakfast; and M. Fauvel looked in the glass before leaving his study, to see if his face betrayed the emotion he felt. He was shocked at the haggard features which it reflected.
"Have I no nerve?" he said to himself: "oh! I must and shall control my feelings until I find out the truth."
At table he talked incessantly, so as to escape any questions from his wife, who, he saw, was uneasy at the sight of his pale face.
But, all the time he was talking, he was casting over in his mind expedients of getting his wife out of the house long enough for him to search her bureau.
At last he asked Mme. Fauvel if she were going out before dinner. "Yes," said she: "the weather is dreadful, but Madeleine and I must do some shopping."
"At what time shall you go?"
"Immediately after breakfast."
He drew a long breath as if relieved of a great weight.
In a short time he would know the truth.
His uncertainty was so torturing to the unhappy man that he preferred the most dreadful reality to his present agony.
Breakfast over, he lighted a cigar, but did not remain in the dining- room to smoke it, as was his habit. He went into his study to try and compose his nerves.
He took the precaution to send Lucien on a message so as to be alone in the house.
After the lapse of half an hour, he heard the carriage roll away with his wife and niece.
Hurrying into Mme. Fauvel's room, he opened the drawer of the chiffonnier, where she kept her jewels.
The last dozen or more leather and velvet boxes, containing superb sets of jewelry which he had presented to her, were gone!
Twelve boxes remained. He nervously opened them.
They were all empty!
The anonymous letter had told the truth.
"Oh, it cannot be!" he gasped in broken tones. "Oh, no, no!"
He wildly pulled open every drawer in the vain hope of finding them packed away. Perhaps she kept them elsewhere.
He tried to hope that she had sent them to be reset; but no, they were all superbly set in the latest fashion; and, moreover, she never would have sent them all at once. He looked again.
Nothing! not one jewel could he find.
He remembered that he had asked his wife at the Jandidier ball why she did not wear her diamonds; and she had replied with a smile:
"Oh! what is the use? Everybody knows them so well; and, besides, they don't suit my costume."
Yes, she had made the answer without blushing, without showing the slightest sign of agitation or shame.
What hardened impudence! What base hypocrisy concealed beneath an innocent, confiding manner!
And she had been thus deceiving him for twenty years! But suddenly a gleam of hope penetrated his confused mind--slight, barely possible; still a straw to cling to:
"Perhaps Valentine has put her diamonds in Madeleine's room."
Without stopping to consider the indelicacy of what he was about to do, he hurried into the young girl's room, and pulled open one drawer after another. What did he find?
Not Mme. Fauvel's diamonds; but Madeleine's seven or eight boxes also empty.
Great heavens! Was this gentle girl, whom he had treated as a daughter, an accomplice in this deed of shame? Had she contributed her jewelry to add to the disgrace of the roof that sheltered her?
This last blow was almost too much for the miserable man. He sank almost lifeless into a chair, and wringing his hands, groaned over the wreck of his happiness. Was this the happy future to which he had looked forward? Was the fabric of his honor, well-being, and domestic bliss, to be dashed to the earth and forever lost in a day? Were his twenty years' labor and high-standing to end thus in shame and sorrow?
Apparently nothing was changed in his existence; he was not materially injured; he could not reach forth his hand, and heal or revenge the smarting wound; the objects around him were unchanged; everything went on in the outside world just as it had gone on during the last twenty years; and yet what a horrible change had taken place in his own heart! While the world envied his prosperity and happiness, here he sat, more heartsore and wearied of life than the worst criminal that ever stood before the inquisition.
What! Valentine, the pure young girl whom he had loved and married in spite of her poverty, in spite of her cold offering of calm affection in return for his passionate devotion; Valentine, the tender, loving wife, who, before a year of married life had rolled by, so often assured him that her affection had grown into a deep, confiding love, that her devotion had grown stronger every day, and that her only prayer was that God would take them both together, since life would be a burden without her noble husband to shield and cherish her--could she have been acting a lie for twenty years?
She, the darling wife, the mother of his sons!
His sons? Good God! Were they his sons?
If she could deceive him now when she was silver-haired, had she not deceived him when she was young?
Not only did he suffer in the present, but the uncertainty of the past tortured his soul. He was like a man who is told that the exquisite wine he has drank contains poison.
Confidence is never half-way: it is, or it is not. His confidence was gone. His faith was dead.
The wretched banker had rested his every hope and happiness on the love of his wife. Believing that she had proved faithless, that she had played him false, and was unworthy of trust, he admitted no possibility of peaceful joy, and felt tempted to seek consolation from self-destruction. What had he to live for now, save to mourn over the ashes of the past?
But this dejection did not last long. Indignant anger, and thirst for vengeance, made him start up and swear that he would lose no time in vain regrets.
M. Fauvel well knew that the fact of the diamonds being stolen was not sufficient ground upon which to bring an accusation against any of the accomplices.
He must possess overwhelming proofs before taking any active steps. Success depended upon present secrecy.
He began by calling his valet, and ordering him to bring to him every letter that should come to the house.
He then wrote to a notary at St. Remy, for minute and authentic information about the Lagors family, and especially about Raoul.
Finally, following the advice of the anonymous letter, he went to the Prefecture of Police, hoping to obtain a biography of Clameran.
But the police, fortunately for many people, are as discreetly silent as the grave. They guard their secrets as a miser his treasure.
Nothing but an order from the chief judge could open those formidable green boxes, and reveal their secrets.
M. Fauvel was politely asked what motives urged him to inquire into the past life of a French citizen; and, as he declined to state his reasons, the chief of police told him he had better apply to the Procureur for the desired information.
This advice he could not follow. He had sworn that the secret of his wrongs should be confined to the three persons interested. He chose to avenge his own injuries, to be alone the judge and executioner.
He returned home more angry than ever; there he found the despatch answering the one which he had sent to St. Remy. It was as follows:
"The Lagors are very poor, and there has never been any member of the family named Raoul. Mme. Lagors had no son, only two daughters."
This information dashed his last hope.
The banker thought, when he discovered his wife's infamy, that she had sinned as deeply as a woman could sin; but he now saw that she had practised a system more shocking than the crime itself.
"Wretched creature!" he cried with anguish; "in order to see her lover constantly, she dared introduce him to me under the name of a nephew who never existed. She had the shameless courage to bring him beneath her husband's roof, and seat him at my fireside, between my sons; and I, confiding fool that I was, welcomed the villain, and lent him money."
Nothing could equal the pain of wounded pride and mortification which he suffered at the thought that Raoul and Mme. Fauvel had amused themselves with his good-natured credulity and obtuseness.
Nothing but death could wipe out an injury of this nature. But the very bitterness of his resentment enabled him to restrain himself until the time for punishment came. With grim satisfaction he promised himself that his acting would be as successful as theirs.
That day he succeeded in concealing his agitation, and kept up a flow of talk at dinner; but at about nine o'clock, when Clameran called on the ladies, he rushed from the house, for fear that he would be unable to control his indignation at the sight of this destroyer of his happiness; and did not return home until late in the night.
The next day he reaped the fruit of his prudence.
Among the letters which his valet brought him at noon, was one bearing the post-mark of Vesinet.
He carefully opened the envelope, and read:
"DEAR AUNT--It is imperatively necessary for me to see you to-day; so do not fail to come to Vesinet.
"I will explain why I give you this trouble, instead of calling at your house.
"RAOUL."
"I have them now!" cried M. Fauvel trembling with satisfaction at the near prospect of vengeance.
Eager to lose no time, he opened a drawer, took out a revolver, and examined the hammer to see if it worked easily.
He imagined himself alone, but a vigilant eye was watching his movements. Gypsy, immediately upon her return from the Archangel, stationed herself at the key-hole of the study-door, and saw all that occurred.
M. Fauvel laid the pistol on the mantel-piece, and nervously resealed the letter, which he then took to the box where the letters were usually left, not wishing anyone to know that Raoul's letter had passed through his hands.
He was only absent two minutes, but, inspired by the imminence of the danger, Gypsy darted into the study, and rapidly extracted the balls from the revolver.
"Thank Heaven!" she murmured: "this peril is averted, and M. Verduret will now perhaps have time to prevent a murder. I must send Cavaillon to tell him."
She hurried into the bank, and sent the clerk with a message, telling him to leave it with Mme. Alexandre, if M. Verduret had left the hotel.
An hour later, Mme. Fauvel ordered her carriage, and went out.
M. Fauvel jumped into a hackney-coach, and followed her.
"God grant that M. Verduret may reach there in time!" cried Nina to herself, "otherwise Mme. Fauvel and Raoul are lost."