“Stop where you are!” he cried, addressing the old officers, who had risen from their chairs.  “Stay, I insist on it!  Whatever happens, Jacques Berthelin has done nothing to be ashamed of in the presence of his old friends and companions.  You have seen the beginning, now stay and see the end.”

While he spoke, he walked into the middle of the room.  He had never quitted his hold of Danville’s arm; step by step they advanced together to the place where Trudaine was standing.

“You have come into my house, and asked me for my daughter in marriage—­and I have given her to you,” said the general, addressing Danville, quietly.  “You told me that your first wife and her brother were guillotined three years ago in the time of the Terror—­and I believed you.  Now look at that man—­look him straight in the face.  He has announced himself to me as the brother of your wife, and he asserts that his sister is alive at this moment.  One of you two has deceived me.  Which is it?”

Danville tried to speak, but no sound passed his lips; tried to wrench his arm from the grasp that was on it, but could not stir the old soldier’s steady hand.

“Are you afraid? are you a coward?  Can’t you look him in the face?” asked the general, tightening his hold sternly.

“Stop! stop!” interposed one of the old officers, coming forward.  “Give him time.  This may be a case of strange accidental resemblance, which would be enough, under the circumstances, to discompose any man.  You will excuse me, citizen,” he continued, turning to Trudaine; “but you are a stranger.  You have given us no proof of your identity.”

“There is the proof,” said Trudaine, pointing to Danville’s face.

“Yes, yes,” pursued the other; “he looks pale and startled enough, certainly.  But I say again, let us not be too hasty; there are strange cases on record of accidental resemblances, and this may be one of them!”

As he repeated those words, Danville looked at him with a faint, cringing gratitude, stealing slowly over the blank terror of his face.  He bowed his head, murmured something, and gesticulated confusedly with the hand that he was free to use.

“Look!” cried the old officer; “look, Berthelin; he denies the man’s identity.”

“Do you hear that?” said the general, appealing to Trudaine.  “Have you proofs to confute him?  If you have, produce them instantly.”

Before the answer could be given the door leading into the drawing-room from the staircase was violently flung open, and Madame Danville—­her hair in disorder, her face in its colorless terror looking like the very counterpart of her son’s—­appeared on the threshold, with the old man Dubois and a group of amazed and startled servants behind her.

“For God’s sake, don’t sign! for God’s sake, come away!” she cried.  “I have seen your wife—­in the spirit, or in the flesh, I know not which—­but I have seen her.  Charles!  Charles! as true as Heaven is above us, I have seen your wife!”