‘You are a fool,’ she said hotly, ‘and although I advise you well, you, by your bungling, upset all my plans. Did I not advise you to provide for the future by entering a good school, and marrying, either by fair means or foul, the richest girl that the rich school contained? Yes. But you, like a fool, ran off with the poorest, and did your very best to ensure your own ruin.’
‘I did not know that the girl was poor.’
‘Did not know! it was your duty, my friend, to ascertain that she was rich. Well, we need not complain now. Thanks to me again, the silly girl has been useful to you, and will be so again. Listen, then——’
But Madeline, trembling outside, could bear it no longer; she turned the handle of the door, and entered the room.
She still wore her walking dress; her face was white as death, her hands trembling and cold; while her fingers closed nervously around the packet of letters which she held.
Madame de Fontenay, who believed that her dupe was quietly sleeping, gave a little scream; Belleisle started to his feet.
‘Madeline, diable! what brings you here?’ he exclaimed, thrown off his guard.
For a moment Madeline did not answer him. She stood apparently calm and collected, but with a face whiter than that of the dead, fixing her large blue eyes upon first one and then another of the faces before her.
‘You are a villain!’ she said at length, walking steadily up to Monsieur Belleisle; ‘you have tried by cruel, cold-blooded falsehood to compass my ruin; you have nearly succeeded, but, thank God, I have found you out at last.’
Livid with rage, and completely taken off his guard, Belleisle stood with clenched fists, as if ready to strike his victim.