Prosper, who was watching from his window, saw him in the distance, and ran down to open the door for him.

“What have you learned?” he said; “what did you find out?  Did you see Madeleine?  Were Raoul and Clameran at the ball?”

But M. Verduret was not in the habit of discussing private affairs where he might be overheard.

“First of all, let us go into your room, and get some water to wash this cut, which burns like fire.”

“Heavens!  Are you wounded?”

“Yes, it is a little souvenir of your friend Raoul.  Ah, I will soon teach him the danger of chopping up a man’s arm!”

Prosper was surprised at the look of merciless rage on his friend’s face, as he calmly washed and dressed his arm.

“Now, Prosper, we will talk as much as you please.  Our enemies are on the alert, and we must crush them instantly, or not at all.  I have made a mistake.  I have been on the wrong track; it is an accident liable to happen to any man, no matter how intelligent he may be.  I took the effect for the cause.  The day I was convinced that culpable relations existed between Raoul and Mme. Fauvel, I thought I held the end of the thread that must lead us to the truth.  I should have been more mistrustful; this solution was too simple, too natural.”

“Do you suppose Mme. Fauvel to be innocent?”

“Certainly not.  But her guilt is not such as I first supposed.  I imagined that, infatuated with a seductive young adventurer, Mme. Fauvel had first bestowed upon him the name of one of her relatives, and then introduced him as her nephew.  This was an adroit stratagem to gain him admission to her husband’s house.

“She began by giving him all the money she could could dispose of; later she let him take her jewels to the pawnbrokers; when she had nothing more to give, she allowed him to steal the money from her husband’s safe.  That is what I first thought.”

“And in this way everything was explained?”

“No, this did not explain everything, as I well knew at the time, and should, consequently, have studied my characters more thoroughly.  How is Clameran’s position to be accounted for, if my first idea was the correct one?”

“Clameran is Lagors’s accomplice of course.”

“Ah, there is the mistake!  I for a long time believed Lagors to be the principal person, when, in fact, he is not.  Yesterday, in a dispute between them, the forge-master said to his dear friend, ’And, above all things, my friend, I would advise you not to resist me, for if you do I will crush you to atoms.’  That explains all.  The elegant Lagors is not the lover of Mme. Fauvel, but the tool of Clameran.  Besides, did our first suppositions account for the resigned obedience of Madeleine?  It is Clameran, and not Lagors, whom Madeleine obeys.”

Prosper began to remonstrate.

M. Verduret shrugged his shoulders.  To convince Prosper he had only to utter one word:  to tell him that three hours ago Clameran had announced his intended marriage with Madeleine; but he did not.