"He is my husband!"

The statement was made in the purest innocence; yet never, as may
well be imagined, did words fall with more stunning force. Not
one of us answered or, I believe, moved so much as a limb or an
eyelid. We only stared, wanting time to take in the astonishing
meaning of the words, and then more time to think what they meant
to us in particular.

Louis de Pavannes' wife! Louis de Pavannes married! If the
statement were true--and we could not doubt, looking in her face,
that at least she thought she was telling the truth--it meant
that we had been fooled indeed! That we had had this journey for
nothing, and run this risk for a villain. It meant that the
Louis de Pavannes who had won our boyish admiration was the
meanest, the vilest of court-gallants. That Mademoiselle de
Caylus had been his sport and plaything. And that we in trying
to be beforehand with Bezers had been striving to save a
scoundrel from his due. It meant all that, as soon as we grasped
it in the least.

"Madame," said Croisette gravely, after a pause so prolonged that
her smile faded pitifully from her face, scared by our strange
looks. "Your husband has been some time away from you? He only
returned, I think, a week or two ago?"

"That is so," she answered, naively, and our last hope vanished.
"But what of that? He was back with me again, and only
yesterday--only yesterday!" she continued, clasping her hands,
"we were so happy."