“Oblige me, sir, for the last time, by keeping silence.  You and I have henceforth nothing to say to each other.  I am the daughter of a race of nobles, and the widow of a man of honor.  You are a traitor and a false witness—­a thing from which all true men and true women turn with contempt.  I renounce you!  Publicly, in the presence of these gentlemen, I say it—­I have no son.”

She turned her back on him; and, bowing to the other persons in the room with the old formal courtesy of by-gone times, walked slowly and steadily to the door.  Stopping there, she looked back; and then the artificial courage of the moment failed her.  With a faint, suppressed cry she clutched at the hand of the old servant, who still kept faithfully at her side; he caught her in his arms, and her head sank on his shoulder.

“Help him!” cried the general to the servants near the door.  “Help him to take her into the next room!”

The old man looked up suspiciously from his mistress to the persons who were assisting him to support her.  With a strange, sudden jealousy he shook his hand at them.  “Home,” he cried; “she shall go home, and I will take care of her.  Away! you there—­nobody holds her head but Dubois.  Downstairs! downstairs to her carriage!  She has nobody but me now, and I say that she shall be taken home.”

As the door closed, General Berthelin approached Trudaine, who had stood silent and apart, from the time when Lomaque first appeared in the drawing-room.

“I wish to ask your pardon,” said the old soldier, “because I have wronged you by a moment of unjust suspicion.  For my daughter’s sake, I bitterly regret that we did not see each other long ago; but I thank you, nevertheless, for coming here, even at the eleventh hour.”

While he was speaking, one of his friends came up, and touching him on the shoulder, said:  “Berthelin, is that scoundrel to be allowed to go?”

The general turned on his heel directly, and beckoned contemptuously to Danville to follow him to the door.  When they were well out of ear-shot, he spoke these words: 

“You have been exposed as a villain by your brother-in-law, and renounced as a liar by your mother.  They have done their duty by you, and now it only remains for me to do mine.  When a man enters the house of another under false pretenses, and compromises the reputation of his daughter, we old army men have a very expeditious way of making him answer for it.  It is just three o’clock now; at five you will find me and one of my friends—­”

He stopped, and looked round cautiously—­then whispered the rest in Danville’s ear—­threw open the door, and pointed downstairs.

“Our work here is done,” said Lomaque, laying his hand on Trudaine’s arm.  “Let us give Danville time to get clear of the house, and then leave it too.”

“My sister! where is she?” asked Trudaine, eagerly.

“Make your mind easy about her.  I will tell you more when we get out.”