No! We must not forget that Darzac went to spend three months in the Midi--That is true! Ah, what might not have happened in that time! Three months during which none of us saw him. He went away ill; he returned almost well. There could be nothing astonishing in the fact that a man’s appearance should be changed when he went away with the look of a dead man and returned with the look of one living and strong! And the wedding had taken place immediately after that. How little any of us had seen of him before the ceremony! And, besides, a week had not yet elapsed since the marriage. A Larsan could easily wear his mask for so short a time. The man--was it Darzac or was it Larsan?--descended from his pedestal and came straight toward me. Had he seen me? I crouched down behind my barberries. (Three months of absence during which Larsan might have had a chance to study every gesture, every mannerism of Darzac! And then--how easy to put Darzac out of the way and to take his place and his bride! Not a difficult trick--for a Larsan!) The voice? What more easy than to imitate the voice of a native of the Midi? One has a little more or a little less of accent than the other, that is all. Occasionally I have fancied that _his_ accent was a little stronger than before the wedding. He was almost upon me. He passed by. He had not seen me. “It is Larsan! I could swear that it was Larsan!” But he paused for a second and gazed sorrowfully upon all nature slumbering around him--him whose suffering was in loneliness and solitude, and a groan escaped his lips, unhappy soul that he was! “It is Darzac!” And then he was gone--and I remained there behind my hedge overwhelmed with the horror of the thought which I had dared to harbor. * * * * *