'Hold your tongue, Claude, hold your tongue!' cried René, in terrible accents. 'You are killing me.' A storm of feelings, irresistible in its fury, had suddenly burst forth within him. He could not doubt his friend's sincerity, and this, added to the assurance with which Claude had spoken of Desforges, forced upon the wretched lover a conviction of Suzanne's duplicity too painful to endure. He could restrain himself no longer, and, rushing upon his tormentor, seized him by the lapels of his coat and shook him so violently that the material gave way. 'When you tell a man such things about the woman he loves you must give him proofs--you understand--proofs!' 'You are mad!' replied Claude, disengaging himself from his grasp; 'proofs!--why, all Paris will give you them, my poor boy! Not one person, but ten, twenty, thirty, will tell you that seven years ago the Moraines were ruined. Who got the husband into the Insurance Company? Desforges. He is a director of that company, as he is also a director in the Compagnie du Nord, and a deputy and an ex-Councillor of State, and Heaven knows what besides! He is a big man, this Desforges, although he doesn't look it, and one who can indulge in all kinds of luxuries. Whom do you always find in the Rue Murillo? Desforges. Whom do you meet with Madame Moraines at the theatre? Desforges. And do you think the fellow is a man to play at Platonic love with this pretty woman married to her ninny of a husband? Such nonsense is all very well for you and me, but not for a Desforges! Wherever are your eyes and ears when you go to see her?' 'I have only been to her house three times,' said René. 'Only three times?' repeated Claude, looking at his friend. Emilie's plaintive confidences on the preceding evening had left him no doubt concerning the relations between Suzanne and the poet. René's imprudent exclamation, however, opened his eyes to the peculiar character these relations must have assumed. 'I don't want to know anything,' he went on; 'it is an understood thing that honour forbids us to talk of such women, just as if real honour did not call upon us to denounce their infamy to the whole world. So many fresh victims would then be spared! Proofs? You want proofs. Collect them for yourself. I know only two ways of getting at a woman's secrets--by opening her letters or having her watched. Madame Moraines never writes--you may be sure of that. Put some one on her track.' 'You are advising me to commit an ignoble action!' cried the poet. 'Nothing is noble or ignoble in love,' replied Larcher. 'I have myself done what I advise you to do. Yes, I have set detectives to watch Colette. A connection with one of these hussies means war to the knife, and you are scrupulous about the choice of your weapon.' 'No, no,' replied René, shaking his head; 'I cannot.'