File No. 113, Émile Gaboriau [best ereader for graphic novels .TXT] 📗

and mine by braving public opinion? Oh, into what an abyss you have fallen, Valentine! and, oh, my God! if you were wearied by my constant devotion, had the thought of your children no power to restrain your evil passions; could you not remain untarnished for their sake?”

M. Fauvel spoke slowly, with painful effort, as if each word choked him.

Raoul, who listened with attention, saw that if the banker knew some things, he certainly did not know all.

He saw that erroneous information had misled the unhappy man, and that he was still a victim of false appearances.

He determined to convince him of the mistake under which he was laboring, and said:

“Monsieur, I hope you will listen.”

But the sound of Raoul’s voice was sufficient to break the charm.

“Silence!” cried the banker with an angry oath, “silence!”

For some moments nothing was heard but the sobs of Mme. Fauvel.

“I came here,” continued the banker, “with the intention of killing you both. But I cannot kill a woman, and I will not kill an unarmed man.”

Raoul once more tried to speak.

“Let me finish!” interrupted M. Fauvel. “Your life is in my hands; the law excuses the vengeance of an injured husband; but I refuse to take advantage of it. I see on your mantel a revolver similar to mine; take it, and defend yourself.”

“Never!”

“Defend yourself!” cried the banker raising his arm, “if you do not⁠—”

Feeling the barrel of M. Fauvel’s revolver touch his breast, Raoul in self-defence seized his own pistol, and prepared to fire.

“Stand in that corner of the room, and I will stand in this,” continued the banker; “and when the clock strikes, which will be in a few seconds, we will both fire.”

They took the places designated, and stood perfectly still.

But the horror of the scene was too much for Mme. Fauvel to witness any longer without interposing. She understood but one thing: her son and her husband were about to kill each other before her very eyes. Fright and horror gave her strength to start up and rush between the two men.

“For God’s sake, have mercy, André!” she cried, wringing her hands with anguish, “let me tell you everything; don’t kill⁠—”

This burst of maternal love, M. Fauvel thought the pleadings of a criminal woman defending her lover.

He roughly seized his wife by the arm, and thrust her aside, saying with indignant scorn:

“Get out of the way!”

But she would not be repulsed; rushing up to Raoul, she threw her arms around him, and said to her husband:

“Kill me, and me alone; for I am the guilty one.”

At these words M. Fauvel glared at the guilty pair, and, deliberately taking aim, fired.

Neither Raoul nor Mme. Fauvel moved. The banker fired a second time; then a third.

He cocked the pistol for a fourth shot, when a man rushed into the room, snatched the pistol from the banker’s hand, and, throwing him on the sofa, ran toward Mme. Fauvel.

This man was M. Verduret, who had been warned by Cavaillon, but did not know that Mme. Gypsy had extracted the balls from M. Fauvel’s revolver.

“Thank Heaven!” he cried, “she is unhurt.”

“How dare you interfere?” cried the banker, who by this time had joined the group. “I have the right to avenge my honor when it has been degraded; the villain shall die!”

M. Verduret seized the banker’s wrists in a vice-like grasp, and whispered in his ear:

“Thank God you are saved from committing a terrible crime; the anonymous letter deceived you.”

In violent situations like this, all the untoward, strange attending circumstances appear perfectly natural to the participators, whose passions have already carried them beyond the limits of social propriety.

Thus M. Fauvel never once thought of asking this stranger who he was and where he came from.

He heard and understood but one fact: the anonymous letter had lied.

“But my wife confesses she is guilty,” he stammered.

“So she is,” replied M. Verduret, “but not of the crime you imagine. Do you know who that man is, that you attempted to kill?”

“Her lover!”

“No: her son!”

The words of this stranger, showing his intimate knowledge of the private affairs of all present, seemed to confound and frighten Raoul more than M. Fauvel’s threats had done. Yet he had sufficient presence of mind to say:

“It is the truth!”

The banker looked wildly from Raoul to M. Verduret; then, fastening his haggard eyes on his wife, exclaimed:

“It is false! you are all conspiring to deceive me! Proofs!”

“You shall have proofs,” replied M. Verduret, “but first listen.”

And rapidly, with his wonderful talent for exposition, he related the principal points of the plot he had discovered.

The true state of the case was terribly distressing to M. Fauvel, but nothing compared with what he had suspected.

His throbbing, yearning heart told him that he still loved his wife. Why should he punish a fault committed so many years ago, and atoned for by twenty years of devotion and suffering?

For some moments after M. Verduret had finished his explanation, M. Fauvel remained silent.

So many strange events had happened, rapidly following each other in succession, and culminating in the shocking scene which had just taken place, that M. Fauvel seemed to be too bewildered to think clearly.

If his heart counselled pardon and forgetfulness, wounded pride and self-respect demanded vengeance.

If Raoul, the baleful witness, the living proof of a far-off sin, were not in existence, M. Fauvel would not have hesitated. Gaston de Clameran was dead; he would have held out his arms to his wife, and said:

“Come to my heart! your sacrifices for my honor shall be your absolution; let the sad past be forgotten.”

But the sight of Raoul froze the words upon his lips.

“So this is your son,” he said to his wife⁠—“this man, who has plundered you and robbed me!”

Mme. Fauvel was unable to utter a word in reply to these reproachful words.

“Oh!” said M. Verduret, “madame will tell you that this young man is the son of Gaston de Clameran; she has never doubted it. But the truth is⁠—”

“What!”

“That, in order to swindle her, he has perpetrated a gross imposture.”

During the last few minutes Raoul had been quietly creeping toward the door, hoping to escape while no one was thinking of him.

But