“But, monsieur, from an urgent letter sent by him yesterday, I was led to suppose—­to infer—­that he——­”

“When he wrote to you, madame, he had projects in view which he has since renounced.”

Mme. Fauvel was too agitated and troubled to think clearly.  Beyond the present she could see nothing.

“Do you mean,” she asked with distrust, “that he has changed his intentions?”

The young man’s face was expressive of sad compassion, as if he shared the sufferings of the unhappy woman before him.

“The marquis has renounced,” he said, in a melancholy tone, “what he wrongly considered a sacred duty.  Believe me, he hesitated a long time before he could decide to apply to you on a subject painful to you both.  When he began to explain his apparent intrusion upon your private affairs, you refused to hear him, and dismissed him with indignant contempt.  He knew not what imperious reasons dictated your conduct.  Blinded by unjust anger, he swore to obtain by threats what you refused to give voluntarily.  Resolved to attack your domestic happiness, he had collected overwhelming proofs against you.  Pardon him:  an oath given to his dying brother bound him.

“These convincing proofs,” he continued, as he tapped his finger on a bundle of papers which he had taken from the mantel, “this evidence that cannot be denied, I now hold in my hand.  This is the certificate of the Rev. Dr. Sedley; this is the declaration of Mrs. Dobbin, the farmer’s wife; and these others are the statements of the physician and of several persons of high social position who were acquainted with Mme. de la Verberie during her stay in London.  Not a single link is missing.  I had great difficulty in getting these papers away from M. de Clameran.  Had he anticipated my intention of thus disposing of them, they would never have been surrendered to my keeping.”

As he finished speaking, the young man threw the bundle of papers into the fire where they blazed up; and in a moment nothing remained of them but a little heap of ashes.

“All is now destroyed, madame,” he said, with a satisfied air.  “The past, if you desire it, is as completely annihilated as those papers.  If anyone, thereafter, dares accuse you of having had a son before your marriage, treat him as a vile calumniator.  No proof against you can be produced; none exists.  You are free.”

Mme. Fauvel began to understand the sense of this scene; the truth dawned upon her bewildered mind.

This noble youth, who protected her from the anger of De Clameran, who restored her peace of mind and the exercise of her own free will, by destroying all proofs of her past, was, must be, the child whom she had abandoned:  Valentin-Raoul.

In an instant, all was forgotten save the present.  Maternal tenderness, so long restrained, now welled up and overflowed as with intense emotion she murmured: