"For some reason," Julien continued, "he seemed anxious to remove me from Paris. He made me a somewhat singular offer. He wanted me to go to some distant country on a mission—not political and yet for Germany."
"And do you go?"
"No," he replied, "I have found other work. I don't think that I seriously considered it at any time, yet I have always been curious as to why he should have made such an offer to me."
She had the air now of a woman who had completely recovered control of herself.
"Sir Julien," she asked, "I beg of you to tell me this. If you do not know who I am, why have you mentioned Herr Freudenberg's name to me?"
"Madame," Julien answered, "because the man who brought me the message from Herr Freudenberg, the man who conducted me to him, the man concerning whom you told me that strange, pathetic little story—he let fall one word. I asked him no question. I wished for no information except from you. Yet I am only human. I have had impulses of curiosity."
"Herr Freudenberg is my husband," Madame Christophor declared.
Julien looked at her in amazement. For the moment he was speechless.
"I say what is perhaps literally but not actually true," she went on. "He was my husband. We are separated. We are not divorced because we were married as Roman Catholics. We are separated. There will never be anything else between us."
Julien remained silent. It was so hard to say anything. The woman's tone told him that around her speech hovered a tragedy.