The préfet shrugged his shoulders with marked impatience.
"And I must ask you," added the Man in Grey in his blandest tones which admitted of no argument, "not to interfere in anything I may say to Madame Darnier in the course of our interview; to express no surprise and, above all, not to attempt to contradict. And you know, Monsieur Laurens, and you, too, Monsieur le Commissaire," he added sternly, "that when I give an order I intend it to be obeyed."
Hardly had this peremptory command fallen from his lips than Madame Darnier was announced.
She came in, looking even more fragile and more delicate in her deep mourning than she had done before. Her large, melancholy eyes sought, as if appealingly, those of the three men who had half-risen to greet her. The Man in Grey offered her a chair, into which she sank.
"You sent for me, Monsieur?" she asked, as she pressed a black-bordered handkerchief to her quivering lips.
"Only to give you the best of news, Madame," the secret agent said cheerily.
"The best of news?" she murmured. "I do not understand."
"My friend Hippolyte Darnier," he exclaimed, "your husband, Madame, is out of danger——"
She rose suddenly, as if some hidden spring had projected her to her feet, and stood rigid and tense, her cheeks the colour of yellow wax, her eyes so dilated that they seemed as black as coal. The préfet and the commissaire had, indeed, the greatest difficulty to maintain the attitude of impassivity which the Minister's agent had so rigidly prescribed.
"Out of danger," murmured Mme. Darnier after a while. "What do you mean?"