k the truth of this strange affair courageously;
but you must permit me to doubt everything until the evidence of
the facts you state is proved to me. In any case you shall have
satisfaction, for, as you will certainly understand, we both require
it."

Jules returned home.

"What is the matter, Jules?" asked his wife, when she saw him. "You look
so pale you frighten me!"

"The day is cold," he answered, walking with slow steps across the room
where all things spoke to him of love and happiness,--that room so calm
and peaceful where a deadly storm was gathering.

"Did you go out to-day?" he asked, as though mechanically.

He was impelled to ask the question by the last of a myriad of thoughts
which had gathered themselves together into a lucid meditation, though
jealousy was actively prompting them.

"No," she answered, in a tone that was falsely candid.

At that instant Jules saw through the open door of the dressing-room the
velvet bonnet which his wife wore in the mornings; on it were drops of
rain. Jules was a passionate man, but he was also full of delicacy. It
was repugnant to him to bring his wife face to face with a lie. When
such a situation occurs, all has come to an end forever between certain
beings. And yet those drops of rain were like a flash tearing through
his brain.

He left the room, went down to the porter's lodge, and said to the
porter, after making sure that they were alone:--

"Fouguereau, a hundred crowns if you tell me the truth; dismissal if you
deceive me; and nothing at all if you ever speak of my question and your
answer."

He stopped to examine the man's face, leading him under the window. Then
he continued:--

"Did madame go out this morning?"

"Madame went out at a quarter to three, and I think I saw her come in
about half an hour ago."

"That is true, upon your honor?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"You will have the money; but if you speak of this, remember, you will
lose all."

Jules returned to his wife.

"Clemence," he said, "I find I must put my accounts in order. Do not be
offended at the inquiry I am going to make. Have I not given you forty
thousand francs since the beginning of the year?"

"More," she said,--"forty-seven."

"Have you spent them?"

"Nearly," she replied. "In the first place, I had to pay several of our
last year's bills--"

"I shall never find out anything in this way," thought Jules. "I am not
taking the best course."

At this moment Jules'