I listened at the door, trying to discover a sound, a movement. Nothing.
The silence of the country seemed to be continued here. I opened the
door and entered. All the curtains were hermetically closed. I drew
those of the dining-room and went toward the bed-room and pushed open
the door. I sprang at the curtain cord and drew it violently. The
curtain opened, a faint light made its way in. I rushed to the bed. It
was empty.
I opened the doors one after another. I visited every room. No one. It
was enough to drive one mad.
I went into the dressing-room, opened the window, and called Prudence
several times. Mme. Duvernoy's window remained closed.
I went downstairs to the porter and asked him if Mlle. Gautier had come
home during the day.
"Yes," answered the man; "with Mme. Duvernoy."
"She left no word for me?"
"No."
"Do you know what they did afterward?"
"They went away in a carriage."
"What sort of a carriage?"
"A private carriage."
What could it all mean?
I rang at the next door.
"Where are you going, sir?" asked the porter, when he had opened to me.
"To Mme. Duvernoy's."
"She has not come back."
"You are sure?"
"Yes, sir; here's a letter even, which was brought for her last night
and which I have not yet given her."
And the porter showed me a letter which I glanced at mechanically. I
recognised Marguerite's writing. I took the letter. It was addressed,
"To Mme. Duvernoy, to forward to M. Duval."
"This letter is for me," I said to the porter, as I showed him the
address.
"You are M. Duval?" he replied.
"Yes.
"Ah! I remember. You often came to see Mme. Duvernoy."
When I was in the street I broke the seal of the letter. If a
thunder-bolt had fallen at my feet I should have been less startled than
I was by what I read.
"By the time you read this letter, Armand, I shall be the mistress of
another man. All is over between us.
"Go back to your father, my friend, and to your sister, and there, by
the side of a pure young girl, ignorant of all our miseries, you will
soon forget what you would have suffered through that lost creature who
is called Marguerite Gautier, whom you have loved for an instant, and
who owes to you the only happy moments of a life which, she hopes, will
not be very long now."