"All is lost, I can see that! Speak quickly, madame, you frighten me."
"My dear Thierry, I am hopelessly ruined," she replied; "but that is not what is suffocating me with rage. She insults me, she tramples me under her feet; at the very outset, without any presumption or provocation on my part, she hurls insults in my face! I am surrounded by spies, who carry tales to her and poison the most innocent things. Thierry," she added, sinking into a chair, "you are an honest man; I swear to you that I am an honest woman."
"Only a miserable villain could deny that!" cried Marcel. "Come, have courage, tell me what you mean."
When Marcel knew everything, excepting only the understanding between Julien and the countess, for they had thought it best to keep their secret temporarily, even from Madame André Thierry, he was much cast down and considered the situation very desperate.
"Here you are," he said, "between sudden, absolute destitution, a terrible thing to a woman with your habits, and a lawsuit of which the result is very doubtful. I no longer know what to advise you. I see that my anticipations are being realized. She can strip you bare and obtain the approval of society, by trying to besmirch your reputation. She has weapons all sharpened for you, she laid in a store of them when she saw that the marquis was sinking, and, feeling sure that he was on his death-bed, she used them; she has manœuvred in cold blood to ruin you, she has set spies upon you and had you followed."
"One moment, Monsieur Thierry; hasn't Monsieur Antoine had a hand in all this?"
"Julien thinks so; I still doubt it; I will find out, and, if necessary, I will set up a counter-system of espionage; but the most urgent thing is not to find out who is betraying you, but to determine what you will do."
"No lawsuits, in any event!"
"No; but let us not make that announcement; we will threaten to make trouble; I will attend to that. They insist that you shall abandon your dower; I propose that they shall purchase that sacrifice, and I will make a stout fight over the conditions."
"Meanwhile," said Julie, "I am at odds with my husband's family, for you can imagine that I shall never set foot inside the marchioness's doors again."