“You never believed that _he_ was dead?” demanded Rouletabille, in a tone filled with an emotion that I could not explain to myself, for it seemed greater even than was warranted by the situation, admitting that the terms of M. Darzac’s telegram were to be taken literally. “I never felt quite sure of it,” I answered. “It was too useful for him to pass for dead to permit him to hesitate at the sacrifice of a few papers, however important those were which were found upon the victim of the Dordogne disaster. But what is the matter with you, my boy? You look as though you were going to faint. Are you ill?” Rouletabille had let himself sink into a chair. It was in a voice which trembled like that of an old man that he confided to me that, even while the marriage ceremony of our friends was going on, he had become possessed with a strong conviction that Larsan was not dead. But after the ceremony was at an end, he had felt more secure. It seemed to him that Larsan would never have permitted Mathilde Stangerson to speak the vows that gave her to Robert Darzac if he were really alive. Larsan would only have had to show his face to stop the marriage; and, however dangerous to himself such an act might have been, he would not, the young reporter believed, have hesitated to deliver himself up to the danger, knowing as he did the strong religious convictions of Professor Stangerson’s daughter, and knowing, too, that she would never have consented to enter into an alliance with another man while her first husband was alive, even had she been freed from the latter by human laws. In vain had everyone who loved her attempted to persuade her that her first marriage was void, according to French statute. She persisted in declaring that the words pronounced by the priest had made her the wife of the miserable wretch who had victimized her, and that she must remain his wife so long as they both should live. Wiping the perspiration from his forehead, Rouletabille remarked: “Sainclair, can you ever forget Larsan’s eyes? Do you remember, ‘The Presbytery has not lost its charm or the garden its brightness?’” I pressed the boy’s hand; it was burning hot. I tried to calm him, but he paid no attention to anything I said. “And it was after the wedding--just a few hours after the wedding, that he chose to appear!” he cried. “There isn’t anything else to think, is there, Sainclair? You took M. Darzac’s wire just as I did? It could mean nothing else except that that man has come back?” “I should think not--but M. Darzac may be mistaken.” “Oh, M. Darzac is not a child to be frightened at bogies. But we must hope--we must hope, mustn’t we, Sainclair, that he is mistaken? Oh, it isn’t possible that such a fearful thing can be true. Oh, Sainclair, it would be too terrible!”