"If I refuse? Ah, indeed, madame marquise, do you think me an idiot? And for a woman of mind you have shown yourself very weak in this. You might have caught me by cajolery--entangled by some promise. I was capable of--" "Come, now, who would stoop so low as to pretend to wish to seduce M. Pascal? You are ordered to repair an injury, you make reparation, and M. Pascal is despised after as before, to-day as yesterday, and to-morrow as to-day." "Misery! this is enough to make one mad!" cried the financier, astonished, and almost frightened by the tone of conviction with which Madeleine spoke, and he asked himself if she had not discovered some secret rottenness in his life which she intended to use as a weapon. But our hero had been a prudent scoundrel, and soon took heart again after a rapid examination of conscience, and replied: "Ah, well, madame, here I am ready to obey when you force me to do so. I am waiting." "It will not be long." "I am waiting." "I have seen in your street several lodgings to let. That is nothing extraordinary, I am sure, M. Pascal; but a happy chance has shown me a very pretty apartment on the first floor, not yet engaged, almost opposite your house." Pascal looked at Madeleine stupidly. "This apartment I shall take, and shall install myself there to-morrow." A vague foreboding made the financier start; he turned pale. Madeleine continued, fixing her burning gaze on the man's eyes: "At every hour of the day and the night you will know that I am there. You will not be able to go out of your house without passing before my windows, where I shall be often, very often. I am fond of sitting at the window. You will not leave your house, I defy you. An irresistible, fatal charm will draw you back to your punishment every instant. The sight of me will give you torture, and you will seek that sight. Every time you meet my glance, and you will meet it often, you will receive a dagger in your heart, and yet, ambushed behind your curtains, you will watch my every movement." As she talked, Madeleine had made a step toward Pascal, holding him fascinated, panting under her fixed, burning eyes, from which he could not remove his own. The marquise continued: "That is not all. As this lodging is large, Antonine, immediately after her marriage, and Frantz will come to live with me. I do not know, then, my poor M. Pascal, what will become of you." "Oh, this woman is infernal," murmured the financier.