This burst of maternal love, M. Fauvel thought the pleadings of a criminal woman defending her lover.
He roughly seized his wife by the arm, and thrust her aside, saying with indignant scorn:
“Get out of the way!”
But she would not be repulsed; rushing up to Raoul, she threw her arms around him, and said to her husband:
“Kill me, and me alone; for I am the guilty one.”
At these words M. Fauvel glared at the guilty pair, and, deliberately taking aim, fired.
Neither Raoul nor Mme. Fauvel moved. The banker fired a second time; then a third.
He cocked the pistol for a fourth shot, when a man rushed into the room, snatched the pistol from the banker’s hand, and, throwing him on the sofa, ran toward Mme. Fauvel.
This man was M. Verduret, who had been warned by Cavaillon, but did not know that Mme. Gypsy had extracted the balls from M. Fauvel’s revolver.
“Thank Heaven!” he cried, “she is unhurt.”