He went to her and told her that he felt much better: he had been suffering since the previous night from an attack of malarial fever which he thought he had long since shaken off. He first caught it during one of his visits, many years before, to a marshy district in the tropics. His words in no way allayed his wife's misgivings.
In the afternoon she stole through the passage to the room which Didier used as a study. It possessed a glazed door, the curtain of which was not properly drawn. And she saw Didier with his eyes fixed on an envelope which she recognized, by the seal on it, as one which she had seen in his hands on the night before his duel with Count de Gorbio. His head was slightly turned towards her, and there was a look of infinite sadness on his face such as she had never seen before.
It was not for his own fate that the unhappy man was moved to pity, but for her fate—the fate which he had brought on her in a moment of lover's cowardice. He called himself a villain and held himself in horror. He would have to die. He would have to rescue her from the shame of her marriage with him. Yes, he would keep the appointment.
At that moment he raised his head, and he seemed to hear a mysterious voice which said in a low whisper: "Don't go!"
The window which looked out on to the grounds was open. He thought he saw a dark form holding on to the window. He half rose to his feet, his heart beating like the clapper of a bell.
"Chéri-Bibi!"
Was it a dream? He found the strength to stand up; and he moved closer to the window with arms outstretched to the dark form. And he heard once more:
"Don't go!" And the dark form leaped into the room.
Françoise, hidden behind the curtain, watched, affrighted, the incomprehensible spectacle of that hideous human monstrosity, the sight of which alone would have made little children fly in terror, clasped in her husband's arms.
What was the meaning of that embrace? By what unfathomable mystery did Didier, her husband, her hero, hold to his heart this formidable brute who came to visit him by the path peculiar to robbers and murderers?