“That might be the case,” he murmured, “who knows?”
“I would soon know,” said M. Verduret, “if I could see them together in that room.”
“Will you promise me, monsieur, to tell me the exact truth, all that you see and hear, no matter how painful it may be for me?”
“I swear it, upon my word of honor.”
Then, with a strength of which a few minutes before he would not have believed himself possessed, Prosper raised the ladder, placed the last round on his shoulders, and said to M. Verduret:
“Mount!”
M. Verduret rapidly ascended the ladder without even shaking it, and had his head on a level with the window.
Prosper had seen but too well. There was Madeleine at this hour of the night, alone with Raoul de Lagors in his room!
M. Verduret observed that she still wore her shawl and bonnet.
She was standing in the middle of the room, talking with great animation. Her look and gestures betrayed indignant scorn. There was an expression of ill-disguised loathing upon her beautiful face.