Listen to me. I am too loyal a man
to have recourse to anonymous letters with which to trouble your peace
of mind; I prefer to speak to you in person. Believe me, if my very
life were not concerned, I should not meddle with the private affairs
of any household, even if I thought I had the right to do so."
"If what you have to say to me concerns Madame Desmarets," replied
Jules, "I request you to be silent, monsieur."
"If I am silent, monsieur, you may before long see Madame Jules on the
prisoner's bench at the court of assizes beside a convict. Now, do you
wish me to be silent?"
Jules turned pale; but his noble face instantly resumed its calmness,
though it was now a false calmness. Drawing the baron under one of the
temporary sheds of the Bourse, near which they were standing, he said
to him in a voice which concealed his intense inward emotion:--
"Monsieur, I will listen to you; but there will be a duel to the death
between us if--"
"Oh, to that I consent!" cried Monsieur de Maulincour. "I have the
greatest esteem for your character. You speak of death. You are
unaware that your wife may have assisted in poisoning me last Saturday
night. Yes, monsieur, since then some extraordinary evil has developed
in me. My hair appears to distil an inward fever and a deadly languor
through my skull; I know who clutched my hair at that ball."
Monsieur de Maulincour then related, without omitting a single fact,
his platonic love for Madame Jules, and the details of the affair in
the rue Soly which began this narrative.
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