"Your husband?"

"Yes, he died three years ago."

She was now sitting up. Life quivered in her veins once more, together
with the horror of living and the horror of all the ghastly things that
threatened her. Lupin went on to ask:

"What was your husband's name?"

She hesitated a moment and answered:

"Mergy."

He exclaimed:

"Victorien Mergy the deputy?"

"Yes."

There was a long pause. Lupin remembered the incident and the stir
which it had caused. Three years ago, Mergy the deputy had blown out
his brains in the lobby of the Chamber, without leaving a word of
explanation behind him; and no one had ever discovered the slightest
reason for that suicide.

"Do you know the reason?" asked Lupin, completing his thought aloud.

"Yes, I know it."

"Gilbert, perhaps?"

"No, Gilbert had disappeared for some years, turned out of doors and
cursed by my husband. It was a very great sorrow, but there was another
motive."

"What was that?" asked Lupin.

But it was not necessary for Lupin to put further questions. Madame
Mergy could keep silent no longer and, slowly at first, with all the
anguish of that past which had to be called up, she told her story:

"Twenty-five years ago, when my name was Clarisse Darcel and my parents
living, I knew three young men at Nice. Their names will at once give
you an insight into the present tragedy: they were Alexis Daubrecq,
Victorien Mergy and Louis Prasville. The three were old acquaintances,
had gone to college in the same year and served in the same regiment.
Prasville, at that time, was in love with a singer at the opera-house at
Nice. The two others, Mergy and Daubrecq, were in love with me. I shall
be brief as regards all this and, for the rest, as regards the whole
story, for the facts tell their own tale. I fell in love with Victorien
Mergy from the first. Perhaps I was wrong not to declare myself at
once. But true love is always timid, hesitating and shy; and I did
not announce my choice until I felt quite certain and quite free.
Unfortunately, that period of waiting, so delightful for those who
cherish a secret passion, had permitted Daubrecq to hope. His anger was
something horrible."

Clarisse Mergy stopped for a few seconds and resumed, in a stifled
voice:

"I shall never forget it... The three of us were in the drawing-room.
Oh, I can hear even now the terrible words of threat and hatred which
he uttered! Victorien was absolutely astounded. He had never s