“How dare you interfere?” cried the banker, who by this time had joined the group. “I have the right to avenge my honor when it has been degraded; the villain shall die!”
M. Verduret seized the banker’s wrists in a vice-like grasp, and whispered in his ear:
“Thank God you are saved from committing a terrible crime; the anonymous letter deceived you.”
In violent situations like this, all the untoward, strange attending circumstances appear perfectly natural to the participators, whose passions have already carried them beyond the limits of social propriety.
Thus M. Fauvel never once thought of asking this stranger who he was and where he came from.
He heard and understood but one fact: the anonymous letter had lied.
“But my wife confesses she is guilty,” he stammered.
“So she is,” replied M. Verduret, “but not of the crime you imagine. Do you know who that man is, that you attempted to kill?”
“Her lover!”
“No: her son!”