Madame De Vigne bit her lip, but did not reply.
De Miravel sat down, crossed his legs, leant back a little, and looked up at her with half-shut eyes. ‘Five years ago,’ he began, ‘you received a certain letter in which you were informed that I was dead. That letter, by some strange error, was forwarded to the wrong person. It was not I, your husband, who was dead, but another man of the same name—another Hector Laroche. When the mistake was discovered, you had left the place where you had previously been living, and no one knew what had become of you. Two years ago I found myself in Paris again. When I had arranged my private affairs, which had suffered during my long absence, I began to make inquiries concerning the wife from whom I had been so cruelly torn, and whom my heart was bleeding to embrace.’
‘Menteur!’ ground out Mora between her teeth.
He waved, as it were, the epithet aside with an airy gesture of his hand, and continued: ‘For a long time I could hear nothing concerning her, and I began to fear that I had lost her for ever. But at length a clue was put into my hands. I discovered that, in consequence of the death of a relative, my incomparable wife had come into a fortune of twelve thousand francs a year—that she had changed her name from Madame Laroche to that of her aunt, Madame De Vigne, and that she and her sister had gone to make their home in England. Naturally, I follow my wife to England, and here, to-day, me voici!’
‘Your price—name your price,’ was all that the lady deigned to answer.
‘Pardon. I am not in want of money—at present. It was my wife whom I sought everywhere, and now that I have found her, I do not intend ever to leave her again.’
‘Liar and villain!’
‘Doucement, je vous prie. Listen! I am no longer so young as I once was. I have travelled—I have seen the world—I am blasé. I want a home—I want what you English call my own fireside. Where, then, should be my home—where should be my fireside, but with my wife—the wife from whom I have been torn for so many cruel years, but whom, parole d’honneur, I have never ceased to love and cherish in my heart!’
‘Oh! this is too much,’ murmured Mora under her breath, the fingers of one hand griping those of the other like a vice. The tension was becoming greater than she could bear.
‘But there need be no scandal, no éclaircissement among my dear wife’s English friends,’ went on De Miravel with the same hard, set smile. ‘I have thought of all that. Madame Laroche is dead—Hector Laroche is dead. In their place we have here, Madame De Vigne, a charming widow; and Monsieur De Miravel, a bachelor not too antique to marry. Monsieur De Miravel has known and admired Madame De Vigne before her marriage to her late husband. What more natural than that he should admire her still, that he should make her an offer of his hand, and that she should accept it? So one day Madame De Vigne and Monsieur De Miravel are quietly married, and, pouf! all the respectable English friends have dust thrown in their eyes!’