Something about the writing struck him as peculiar.
It was evidently a disguised hand, and although, owing to the fact of his being a millionnaire, he was in the habit of receiving anonymous communications, sometimes abusive, but generally begging him for money, this particular letter filled him with an indefinite presentiment of evil. A cold chill ran through his heart, and he dreaded to open it.
With absolute certainty that he was about to learn of a new calamity, he broke the seal, and opening the coarse cafe paper, was shocked by the following words:
“DEAR SIR—You have handed your cashier over to the law, and you acted properly, convinced as you were of his dishonesty.
“But if it was he who took three hundred and fifty thousand francs from your safe, was it he also who took Mme. Fauvel’s diamonds?”
This was a terrible blow to a man whose life hitherto had been an unbroken chain of prosperity, who could recall the past without one bitter regret, without remembering any sorrow deep enough to bring forth a tear.
What! His wife deceive him! And among all men, to choose one vile enough to rob her of her jewels, and force her to be his accomplice in the ruin of an innocent young man!
For did not the letter before him assert this to be a fact, and tell him how to convince himself of its truth?
M. Fauvel was as bewildered as if he had been knocked on the head with a club. It was impossible for his scattered ideas to take in the enormity of what these dreadful words intimated. He seemed to be mentally and physically paralyzed, as he sat there staring blankly at the letter.
But this stupefaction suddenly changed to indignant rage.