ise
never to worry Mme. la Marquise again with his presence. But this I
have never been able to ascertain with any finality. Certain it is
that when at three o'clock on that same afternoon M. de Firmin-Latour
presented himself at my office, he did not offer me a share in any
five thousand francs, though he spoke to me about the money, adding
that he thought it would look well if he were to give it back to
Madame, and to tell her that M. de Naquet had rejected so paltry a sum
with disdain.

I thought such a move unnecessary, and we argued about it rather
warmly, and in the end he went away, as I say, without offering me any
share in the emolument. Whether he did put his project into execution
or not I never knew. He told me that he did. After that there followed
for me, Sir, many days, nay, weeks, of anxiety and of strenuous work.
Mme. la Marquise received several more letters from the supposititious
M. de Naquet, any one of which would have landed me, Sir, in a vessel
bound for New Caledonia. The discarded husband became more and more
insistent as time went on, and finally sent an ultimatum to Madame
saying that he was tired of perpetual interviews with M. le Marquis de
Firmin-Latour, whose right to interfere in the matter he now wholly
denied, and that he was quite determined to claim his lawful wife
before the whole world.

Madame la Marquise, in the meanwhile, had passed from one fit of
hysterics into another. She denied her door to everyone and lived in
the strictest seclusion in her beautiful apartment of the Rue de
Grammont. Fortunately this all occurred in the early autumn, when the
absence of such a society star from fashionable gatherings was not as
noticeable as it otherwise would have been. But clearly we were
working up for the climax, which occurred in the way I am about to
relate.

4.

Ah, my dear Sir, when after all these years I think of my adventure
with that abominable Marquis, righteous and noble indignation almost
strikes me dumb. To think that with my own hands and brains I
literally put half a million into that man's pocket, and that he
repaid me with the basest ingratitude, almost makes me lose my faith
in human nature. Theodore, of course, I could punish, and did so
adequately; and where my chastisement failed, Fate herself put the
finishing touch.

But M. de Firmin-Latour . . .!

However, you shall judge for yourself.

As I told you, we now made ready for the climax; and that clim