The valet and the footman waited in the dining-room a quarter of an hour without seeing master or mistress. “Madame will not dine to-day,” said the waiting-maid, coming in. “What’s the matter, Josephine?” asked the valet. “I don’t know,” she answered. “Madame is crying, and is going to bed. Monsieur has no doubt got some love-affair on hand, and it has been discovered at a very bad time. I wouldn’t answer for madame’s life. Men are so clumsy; they’ll make you scenes without any precaution.” “That’s not so,” said the valet, in a low voice. “On the contrary, madame is the one who--you understand? What times does monsieur have to go after pleasures, he, who hasn’t slept out of madame’s room for five years, who goes to his study at ten and never leaves it till breakfast, at twelve. His life is all known, it is regular; whereas madame goes out nearly every day at three o’clock, Heaven knows where.” “And monsieur too,” said the maid, taking her mistress’s part. “Yes, but he goes straight to the Bourse. I told him three times that dinner was ready,” continued the valet, after a pause. “You might as well talk to a post.” Monsieur Jules entered the dining-room. “Where is madame?” he said. “Madame is going to bed; her head aches,” replied the maid, assuming an air of importance. Monsieur Jules then said to the footmen composedly: “You can take away; I shall go and sit with madame.” He went to his wife’s room and found her weeping, but endeavoring to smother her sobs with her handkerchief. “Why do you weep?” said Jules; “you need expect no violence and no reproaches from me. Why should I avenge myself? If you have not been faithful to my love, it is that you were never worthy of it.” “Not worthy?” The words were repeated amid her sobs and the accent in which they were said would have moved any other man than Jules. “To kill you, I must love more than perhaps I do love you,” he continued. “But I should never have the courage; I would rather kill myself, leaving you to your--happiness, and with--whom!--” He did not end his sentence. “Kill yourself!” she cried, flinging herself at his feet and clasping them. But he, wishing to escape the embrace, tried to shake her off, dragging her in so doing toward the bed. “Let me alone,” he said. “No, no, Jules!” she cried. “If you love me no longer I shall die. Do you wish to know all?” “Yes.” He took her, grasped her violently, and sat down on the edge of the bed, holding her between his legs. Then, looking at that beautiful face now red as fire and furrowed with tears,-- “Speak,” he said. Her sobs began again. “No; it is a secret of life and death. If I tell it, I--No, I cannot. Have mercy, Jules!” “You have betrayed me--” “Ah! Jules, you think so now, but soon you will know all.” “But this Ferragus, this convict whom you go to see, a man enriched by crime, if he does not belong to you, if you do not belong to him--” “Oh, Jules!”