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.