"Fantômas," she murmured: "I cannot tell you how often I have thought over this maddening, this puzzling personality, terrifying beyond words, who seems implacably bent on our destruction!... Again and again I have had reason to fear that his ill-omened influence has been directed against my humble self!... As if he guessed something of this, the baron has frequently sought to reassure me; yet, through some singular coincidence, each time we have spoken of Fantômas a tragedy has occurred, a dreadful tragedy, which has reminded us of monstrous crimes committed by him in the past!"
Wilhelmine's statements were impressing de Loubersac less and less favourably.
"Play acting—and clumsy play acting at that!" decided Henri: "Done to avert my suspicions, imagined to feed my curiosity!... She thinks herself a capable player at the game! She does not know the person she is playing with!"
De Loubersac came to a decision. He rose, stood close to Wilhelmine, who also rose, instinctively, looked her straight in the face, and asked, point-blank:
"Wilhelmine de Naarboveck, or Thérèse Auvernois—it matters little to me—I wish to know the real truth.... Confess, then, that you were Captain Brocq's mistress!"
"Monsieur!" exclaimed the startled girl. She met de Loubersac's inquisitorial look proudly.
His penetrating stare did not falter.
Suddenly Wilhelmine's lips began to tremble. She grew deadly pale: she might have been on the verge of a fainting fit. She had realised the incredulity of the man to whom, in her chaste innocence, she had given her heart. In the pure soul of this loving girl an immense void made itself felt. It was as though a flashlight had revealed to her the lamentable truth: that the strange position in which destiny had placed her—a position strange but not infamous—had made of her a being apart, had put her outside the ordinary life of humanity, outside the law of love!... A desire to explain, to convince, to justify herself, the desire of a desperate creature at bay, burned up in her like a flame: it flashed and died. Henri had no confidence in her! He believed this odious thing of her—this abominable, incredible thing!... Her heart was full to bursting with an agony of grief, of outraged innocence.... She looked him straight in the eyes—her own flashing fury.
"You insult me!" she cried.... "Withdraw what you have just said!... You will apologise!"
De Loubersac said in a low, distinct voice: