The former cashier remained prostrated, striking the floor with his head. “And you would forsake me,” he groaned, “when we are united by a past such as ours! How could you replace me? Where would you find a slave so devoted to your every wish?” The baroness was getting impatient. “Stop!” she interrupted,--“stop these demonstrations as useless as ridiculous.” This time he did start up, as if lashed with a whip and, double locking the door which communicated with the ante-chamber, he put the key in his pocket; and, with a step as stiff and mechanical as that of an automaton, he disappeared in the sleeping-room. “He is going for a weapon,” whispered Mme. Cadelle. It was also what Marius thought. “Run down quick,” he said to Mme. Zelie. “In a cab standing opposite No. 25, you will find Mlle. Gilberte Favoral waiting. Let her come at once.” And, rushing into the parlor, “Fly!” he said to Mme. Thaller. But she was as petrified by this apparition. “M. de Tregars!” “Yes, yes, me. But hurry and go!” And he pushed her into the closet. It was but time. Vincent Favoral reappeared upon the threshold of the bedroom. But, if it was a weapon he had gone for, it was not for the one which Marius and Mme. Cadelle supposed. It was a bundle of papers which he held in his hand. Seeing M. de Tregars there, instead of Mme. de Thaller, an exclamation of terror and surprise rose to his lips. He understood vaguely what must have taken place; that the man who stood there must have been concealed in the glass closet, and that he had assisted the baroness to escape. “Ah, the miserable wretch!” he stammered with a tongue made thick by passion, “the infamous wretch! She has betrayed me; she has surrendered me. I am lost!” Mastering the most terrible emotion he had ever felt, “No, no! you shall not be surrendered,” uttered M. de Tregars. Collecting all the energy that the devouring passion which had blasted his existence had left him, the former cashier of the Mutual Credit took one or two steps forward. “Who are you, then?” he asked. “Do you not know me? I am the son of that unfortunate Marquis de Tregars of whom you spoke a moment since. I am Lucienne’s brother.” Like a man who has received a stunning blow, Vincent Favoral sank heavily upon a chair. “He knows all,” he groaned. “Yes, all!” “You must hate me mortally.” “I pity you.” The old cashier had reached that point when all the faculties, after being strained to their utmost limits, suddenly break down, when the strongest man gives up, and weeps like a child. “Ah, I am the most wretched of villains!” he exclaimed. He had hid his face in his hands; and in one second,--as it happens, they say, to the dying on the threshold of eternity,--he reviewed his entire existence.