“Why, that man must have been a horrible old scoundrel!” exclaimed the young woman.
This is just the point to which M. de Tregars wished to bring her.
“And now,” he resumed, “you must understand the enormous interest we have in knowing what has become of him.”
“I have already told you.”
M. de Tregars had risen, in his turn. Taking Mme. Zelie’s hands, and fixing upon her one of those acute looks, which search for the truth down to the innermost recesses of the conscience,
“Come, my dear child,” he began in a penetrating voice, “you are a worthy and honest girl. Will you leave in the most frightful despair a family who appeal to your heart? Be sure that no harm will ever happen through us to Vincent Favoral.”
She raised her hand, as they do to take an oath in a court of justice, and, in a solemn tone,
“I swear,” she uttered, “that I went to the station with M. Vincent; that he assured me that he was going to Brazil; that he had his passage-ticket; and that all his baggage was marked, ‘Rio de Janeiro.’”
The disappointment was great: and M. de Tregars manifested it by a gesture.
“At least,” he insisted, “tell me who the woman was whose place you took here.”