“When I recall all the acts of Mme. Darzac after your return from San Remo, I can see now in each one of them an expression of the terror which she experienced from her fear that she should allow the secret of her suspicion and her constant agony to escape her. Ah, let me speak, M. Darzac! Everything must be said--everything must be explained here and now if there is to be peace in the future! We are about to clear up the situation. To go on then, there was nothing natural or happy in Mlle. Stangerson’s behavior. The very eagerness with which she assented to your desire to hasten the marriage ceremony proved the longing which she felt to definitely banish the torment of her soul. Her eyes--I remember it now!--used to say at that time--how often and how clearly! ‘Is it possible that I continue to see Larsan everywhere, even in the face of the man who is at my side, who is going to lead me to the altar and to take me away with him?’ “From the moment of your return from the South until the apparition at the railroad station, monsieur, she lived in the most utter misery. She was already crying for help--for help against herself--against her thoughts--and, perhaps, even against _you_! But she dared not reveal her thought to any person because she dreaded that any confidant might say to her----” And Rouletabille leaned over and said in M. Darzac’s ear, not so low that I could not hear, but so softly that the words did not reach Mathilde: “Are you going mad again?” Then, lifting his head again, he continued: “You ought to understand everything better now, my dear M. Darzac--both the strange coldness with which you were treated occasionally and also the fits of remorseful tenderness which, in the doubt which filled her brain, would impel Mme. Darzac to surround you with every evidence of attention and affection. And, furthermore, allow me to tell you that I myself have sometimes found you so gloomy and _distrait_ that I have fancied that you must have discovered that whenever Mme. Darzac looked at you, she could not, in spite of herself, chase from her mind the image of Larsan. It came upon her when she spoke to you and when she was silent--when you were beside her and when you were at a distance. And, consequently--let us understand each other completely--it was _not_ the belief that Professor Stangerson’s daughter would have known it, which removed my suspicions, since, in spite of herself, she entertained the fear all the while that you and Larsan were one. No! no! my suspicions were removed by another cause!” “They might have been removed,” exclaimed M. Darzac, at once ironically and despairingly--“they might have been removed, it would seem, by the simple course of reasoning that if I had been Larsan, wedded to Mlle. Stangerson, having her for my wife, I would have had every cause for making her believe in Larsan’s death! And I would have never resuscitated myself! Was it not upon the day that Larsan returned to earth that I lost Mathilde?”