e. To her Jean Roussel was
everything that her love painted him. She was indignant at her father's
attitude, and did not conceal her feelings. Her father sent her to stay
with an aunt in Cincinnati. There she was joined by Jean Roussel and, in
spite of the reverence she felt for her father, ran away with him to get
married.

They went to Louisville and lived there for some time. One morning,
however, a knock came at the door of the house in which they were and
the police entered to arrest Jean Roussel. It was then that Mathilde
Stangerson, or Roussel, learned that her husband was no other than the
notorious Ballmeyer!

The young woman in her despair tried to commit suicide. She failed in
this, and was forced to rejoin her aunt in Cincinnati, The old lady was
overjoyed to see her again. She had been anxiously searching for her and
had not dared to tell Monsieur Stangerson of her disappearance. Mathilde
swore her to secrecy, so that her father should not know she had been
away. A month later, Mademoiselle Stangerson returned to her father,
repentant, her heart dead within her, hoping only one thing: that she
would never again see her husband, the horrible Ballmeyer. A report was
spread, a few weeks later, that he was dead, and she now determined
to atone for her disobedience by a life of labour and devotion for her
father. And she kept her word.

All this she had confessed to Robert Darzac, and, believing Ballmeyer
dead, had given herself to the joy of a union with him. But fate had
resuscitated Jean Roussel--the Ballmeyer of her youth. He had
taken steps to let her know that he would never allow her to marry
Darzac--that he still loved her.

Mademoiselle Stangerson never for one moment hesitated to confide in
Monsieur Darzac. She showed him the letter in which Jean Roussel asked
her to recall the first hours of their union in their beautiful and
charming Louisville home. "The presbytery has lost nothing of its charm,
nor the garden its brightness," he had written. The scoundrel pretended
to be rich and claimed the right of taking her back to Louisville. She
had told Darzac that if her father should know of her dishonour, she
would kill herself. Monsieur Darzac had sworn to silence her persecutor,
even if he had to kill him. He was outwitted and would have succumbed
had it not been for the genius of Rouletabille.

Mademoiselle Stangerson was herself helpless in the hands of such a
villain. She had tried to kill him