"Disappeared—I can't tell you where! And yourself—what about the woman you were so passionately attached to, Madame Arnoux?"
"She is probably at Rome with her son, a lieutenant of chasseurs."
"And her husband?"
"He died a year ago."
"You don't say so?" exclaimed the advocate. Then, striking his forehead:
"Now that I think of it, the other day in a shop I met that worthy Maréchale, holding by the hand a little boy whom she has adopted. She is the widow of a certain M. Oudry, and is now enormously stout. What a change for the worse!—she who formerly had such a slender waist!"
Deslauriers did not deny that he had taken advantage of the other's despair to assure himself of that fact by personal experience.
"As you gave me permission, however."
This avowal was a compensation for the silence he had maintained with reference to his attempt with Madame Arnoux.
Frederick would have forgiven him, inasmuch as he had not succeeded in the attempt.