“What is the matter, Jules?” asked his wife, when she saw him. “You look so pale you frighten me!”
“The day is cold,” he answered, walking with slow steps across the room where all things spoke to him of love and happiness,—that room so calm and peaceful where a deadly storm was gathering.
“Did you go out to-day?” he asked, as though mechanically.
He was impelled to ask the question by the last of a myriad of thoughts which had gathered themselves together into a lucid meditation, though jealousy was actively prompting them.
“No,” she answered, in a tone that was falsely candid.
At that instant Jules saw through the open door of the dressing-room the velvet bonnet which his wife wore in the mornings; on it were drops of rain. Jules was a passionate man, but he was also full of delicacy. It was repugnant to him to bring his wife face to face with a lie. When such a situation occurs, all has come to an end forever between certain beings. And yet those drops of rain were like a flash tearing through his brain.
He left the room, went down to the porter’s lodge, and said to the porter, after making sure that they were alone:—
“Fouguereau, a hundred crowns if you tell me the truth; dismissal if you deceive me; and nothing at all if you ever speak of my question and your answer.”
He stopped to examine the man’s face, leading him under the window. Then he continued:—
“Did madame go out this morning?”