“She suffers,” thought Jules.  “Poor Clemence!  May God protect us!”

He kissed her very softly on the forehead.  She woke, saw her husband, and remembered all.  Unable to speak, she took his hand, her eyes filling with tears.

“I am innocent,” she said, ending her dream.

“You will not go out to-day, will you?” asked Jules.

“No, I feel too weak to leave my bed.”

“If you should change your mind, wait till I return,” said Jules.

Then he went down to the porter’s lodge.

“Fouguereau, you will watch the door yourself to-day.  I wish to know exactly who comes to the house, and who leaves it.”

Then he threw himself into a hackney-coach, and was driven to the hotel de Maulincour, where he asked for the baron.

“Monsieur is ill,” they told him.

Jules insisted on entering, and gave his name.  If he could not see the baron, he wished to see the vidame or the dowager.  He waited some time in the salon, where Madame de Maulincour finally came to him and told him that her grandson was much too ill to receive him.

“I know, madame, the nature of his illness from the letter you did me the honor to write, and I beg you to believe—­”

“A letter to you, monsieur, written by me!” cried the dowager, interrupting him.  “I have written you no letter.  What was I made to say in that letter, monsieur?”

“Madame,” replied Jules, “intending to see Monsieur de Maulincour to-day, I thought it best to preserve the letter in spite of its injunction to destroy it.  There it is.”

Madame de Maulincour put on her spectacles, and the moment she cast her eyes on the paper she showed the utmost surprise.

“Monsieur,” she said, “my writing is so perfectly imitated that, if the matter were not so recent, I might be deceived myself.  My grandson is ill, it is true; but his reason has never for a moment been affected.  We are the puppets of some evil-minded person or persons; and yet I cannot imagine the object of a trick like this.  You shall see my grandson, monsieur, and you will at once perceive that he is perfectly sound in mind.”

She rang the bell, and sent to ask if the baron felt able to receive Monsieur Desmarets.  The servant returned with an affirmative answer.  Jules went to the baron’s room, where he found him in an arm-chair near the fire.  Too feeble to move, the unfortunate man merely bowed his head with a melancholy gesture.  The Vidame de Pamiers was sitting with him.

“Monsieur le baron,” said Jules, “I have something to say which makes it desirable that I should see you alone.”

“Monsieur,” replied Auguste, “Monsieur le vidame knows about this affair; you can speak fearlessly before him.”

“Monsieur le baron,” said Jules, in a grave voice, “you have troubled and well-nigh destroyed my happiness without having any right to do so.  Until the moment when we can see clearly which of us should demand, or grant, reparation to the other, you are bound to help me in following the dark and mysterious path into which you have flung me.  I have now come to ascertain from you the present residence of the extraordinary being who exercises such a baneful effect on your life and mine.  On my return home yesterday, after listening to your avowals, I received that letter.”