“I think that no one now among you ladies and gentlemen retains any doubt concerning the honor of Madame Dalmont and Mademoiselle Agathe de Hautmont?”
“No one! no one!” they hastened to reply on all sides.
“As for myself,” said Doctor Antoine, going up to Paul, “I may say that I never doubted it, and that I have always defended those ladies when anyone presumed to speak ill of them.”
“Very good, doctor; give me your hand then, and come to see us at the Tower; I trust that your welcome will make you forget your first visit.”
The doctor shook the hand that Paul offered him, and the three friends took their leave.
Ere long, the rest of the company followed their example, and Chamoureau was left alone with his wife, to whom he proposed to address a severe lecture. But before he had determined what to say, Thélénie abruptly left the room.
“Ah! she suspects that I have some unpleasant things to say to her,” said Chamoureau to himself; “she fled from my wrath; I will say it all to her at dinner.”
But Chamoureau dined alone; his wife did not come down; and in the evening, when he tried to find her, he learned that she had sent her trunks to the railway station, and had left the house long before.
Thereupon he wondered whether he should go after her; but upon mature reflection, he concluded that he would do better to wait until it should please her to return to him.
A month after these occurrences, a double marriage united Paul Duronceray to Honorine, and Edmond Didier to Agathe, to whom her aged uncle bequeathed his whole fortune.