“Monsieur!”
“Yes. It was a presumptuous thing to do, perhaps; but the end justified the means in this instance. I am glad I did listen, because it has enabled me to say to you, Take courage, Prosper: Mlle. Madeleine loves you; she has never ceased to love you.”
Like a dying man who eagerly listens to deceitful promises of recovery, although he feels himself sinking into the grave, did Prosper feel his sad heart cheered by M. Verduret’s assertion.
“Oh,” he murmured, suddenly calmed, “if only I could hope!”
“Rely upon me, I am not mistaken. Ah, I could see the torture endured by this generous girl, while she struggled between her love, and what she believed to be her duty. Were you not convinced of her love when she bade you farewell?”
“She loves me, she is free, and yet she shuns me.”
“No, she is not free! In breaking off her engagement with you, she was governed by some powerful, irrepressible event. She is sacrificing herself—for whom? We shall soon know; and the secret of her self-sacrifice will discover to us the secret of her plot against you.”
As M. Verduret spoke, Prosper felt all his resolutions of revolt slowly melting away, and their place taken by confidence and hope.
“If what you say were true!” he mournfully said.
“Foolish young man! Why do you persist in obstinately shutting your eyes to the proof I place before you? Can you not see that Mlle. Madeleine knows who the thief is? Yes, you need not look so shocked; she knows the thief, but no human power can tear it from her. She sacrifices you, but then she almost has the right, since she first sacrificed herself.”