“Still, he insisted upon taking the first train for Paris, for until he saw Eugenie he was uncertain how to act. Anna might never have sailed for America at all, for where did she get the money? It might be a ruse to deceive him, and by the time he reached Paris he had made up his mind that it was. Calling the first carriage he saw, he was driven rapidly to Eugenie’s house, and ringing the bell violently, demanded to see Madame Arschinard. She was ready for him, and had counted upon his doing just what he had done. She knew he would take the first train to Avignon, and the next train to Havre, and then she knew he would come to her. “‘Send him to my room,’ was her reply to the servant’s message, and in a moment he stood confronting her with a face more like that of an enraged animal than a human being. “But she met his gaze unflinchingly, and when he said: “‘Where are my wife and child?’ “She answered him fearlessly: “‘I last saw them on the deck of the _l’Europe_ as it put out to sea; if living, they are in that vessel still, and almost to America. It is several days since they sailed.’ “For a moment he could not speak, but stood glancing at her as a wild beast might glance at some creature it meant to annihilate. But she never flinched a hair, and her eyes grew larger and brighter, and her lips more firmly compressed, as she stood regarding him, with a thought of Agatha in her heart. This was her hour of revenge, and when he found voice to say: “‘Why has she gone, and who helped her to go, and where is Madame Verwest? Tell me what you know,’ she burst forth impetuously, and answered him: