would probably like to avoid. The
world often judges uncharitably. Can you let me have your reply before
Saturday?"

Georges bowed, and together with his wife left the office. When they
arrived home, Du Roy closed the door and throwing his hat on the bed,
asked: "What were the relations between you and Vaudrec?"

Madeleine, who was taking off her veil, turned around with a shudder:
"Between us?"

"Yes, between you and him! One does not leave one's entire fortune to a
woman unless--"

She trembled, and could scarcely take out the pins which fastened the
transparent tissue. Then she stammered in an agitated manner: "You are
mad--you are--you are--you did not think--he would leave you anything!"

Georges replied, emphazing each word: "Yes, he could have left me
something; me, your husband, his friend; but not you, my wife and his
friend. The distinction is material in the eyes of the world."

Madeleine gazed at him fixedly: "It seems to me that the world would
have considered a legacy from him to you very strange."

"Why?"

"Because,"--she hesitated, then continued: "Because you are my husband;
because you were not well acquainted; because I have been his friend so
long; because his first will, made during Forestier's lifetime, was
already in my favor."

Georges began to pace to and fro. He finally said: "You cannot accept
that."

She answered indifferently: "Very well; it is not necessary then to
wait until Saturday; you can inform M. Lamaneur at once."

He paused before her, and they gazed into one another's eyes as if by
that mute and ardent interrogation they were trying to examine each
other's consciences. In a low voice he murmured: "Come, confess your
relations."

She shrugged her shoulders. "You are absurd. Vaudrec was very fond of
me, very, but there was nothing more, never."

He stamped his foot. "You lie! It is not possible."

She replied calmly: "It is so, nevertheless."

He resumed his pacing to and fro; then pausing again, he said: "Explain
to me, then, why he left all his fortune to you."

She did so with a nonchalant air: "It is very simple. As you said just
now, we were his only friends, or rather, I was his only friend, for he
knew me when a child. My mother was a governess in his father's house.
He came here continually, and as he had no legal heirs, he selected me.
It is possible that he even loved me a little. But what woman has never
been loved thus? He brought me flowers every M