"I implore you, Raoul," she said, "I beseech you to put those bank-notes back in the box. I shall have money to-morrow, I swear it to you a hundred times over, and I will give it to you, my son. I beg you to take pity on your mother!"
He paid no attention to her. He was examining the long scratch on the door. This mark of the theft was very convincing and disturbing.
"At least," implored Madame Fauvel, "don't take all. Keep what you need to save yourself, and leave the rest."
"What for? Would a balance make discovery less easy?"
"Yes, because I—you see I can manage it. Let me arrange it! I can find an explanation! I will tell André that I needed money—"
With precaution, Raoul closed the safe.
"Come," he said to his mother, "let us leave, so that we may not be suspected. One of the servants might go to the drawing-room and be surprised not to find us there."
His cruel indifference and cold calculation at such a moment filled Madame Fauvel with indignation. Yet she still hoped that she might influence her son. She still believed in the power of her entreaties and tears.
"Ah me!" she said, "it might be as well! If they discover us, I care little or nothing. We are lost! André will drive me from the house, a miserable creature. But at least, I will not sacrifice the innocent. To-morrow Prosper will be accused. Clameran has taken from him the woman he loves, and you, now you will rob him of his honor. I will not."
She spoke so loud and with such a penetrating voice that Raoul was alarmed. He knew that the office clerk slept in an adjoining room. Although it was not late, he might have gone to bed; and if so, he could hear every word.