This scornful behavior did not, however, seem to surprise or hurt Raoul. He simply answered by an ironical gesture which implied, “As you please!”
He followed her to the gate, which he opened and closed after her; then he hurried back to the house, while Madeleine’s carriage drove rapidly away.
“Now, monsieur,” said Prosper, “you must tell me what you saw. You promised me the truth no matter how bitter it might be. Speak; I can bear it, be it what it may!”
“You will only have joy to bear, my friend. Within a month you will bitterly regret your suspicions of to-night. You will blush to think that you ever imagined Mlle. Madeleine to be intimate with a man like Lagors.”
“But, monsieur, appearances——”
“It is precisely against appearances that we must be on our guard. Always distrust them. A suspicion, false or just, is always based on something. But we must not stay here forever; and, as Raoul has fastened the gate, we shall have to climb back again.”
“But there is the ladder.”
“Let it stay where it is; as we cannot efface our footprints, he will think thieves have been trying to get into the house.”
They scaled the wall, and had not walked fifty steps when they heard the noise of a gate being unlocked. The stood aside and waited; a man soon passed on his way to the station.
“That is Raoul,” said M. Verduret, “and Joseph will report to us that he has gone to tell Clameran what has just taken place. If they are only kind enough to speak French!”