ter how painful it may be for me?"

"I swear it, upon my word of honor."

Then, with a strength of which a few minutes before he would not have
believed himself possessed, Prosper raised the ladder, placed the last
round on his shoulders, and said to M. Verduret:

"Mount!"

M. Verduret rapidly ascended the ladder without even shaking it, and had
his head on a level with the window.

Prosper had seen but too well. There was Madeleine at this hour of the
night, alone with Raoul de Lagors in his room!

M. Verduret observed that she still wore her shawl and bonnet.

She was standing in the middle of the room, talking with great
animation. Her look and gestures betrayed indignant scorn. There was an
expression of ill-disguised loathing upon her beautiful face.

Raoul was seated by the fire, stirring up the coals with a pair of
tongs. Every now and then, he would shrug his shoulders, like a man
resigned to everything he heard, and had no answer, except, "I cannot
help it. I can do nothing for you."

M. Verdure would willingly have given the diamond ring on his finger to
be able to hear what was said; but the roaring wind completely drowned
their voices.

"They are evidently quarrelling," he thought; "but it is not a lovers'
quarrel."

Madeleine continued talking; and it was by closely watching the face
of Lagors, clearly revealed by the lamp on the mantel, that M. Verduret
hoped to discover the meaning of the scene before him.

At one moment Lagors would start and tremble in spite of his apparent
indifference; the next, he would strike at the fire with the tongs, as
if giving vent to his rage at some reproach uttered by Madeleine.

Finally Madeleine changed her threats into entreaties, and, clasping her
hands, almost fell at his knees.

He turned away his head, and refused to answer save in monosyllables.

Several times she turned to leave the room, but each time returned, as
if asking a favor, and unable to make up her mind to leave the house
till she had obtained it.

At last she seemed to have uttered something decisive; for Raoul quickly
rose and opened a desk near the fireplace, from which he took a bundle
of papers, and handed them to her.

"Well," thought M. Verduret, "this looks bad. Can it be a compromising
correspondence which the fair one wants to secure?"

Madeleine took the papers, but was apparently still dissatisfied. She
again entreated him to give her something else. Raoul refused; and t