With an affectionate gesture he reassured her and enjoined silence, and the unhappy girl, blushing deeply, fell upon the bed hiding in the pillows her face bathed in tears.
Pierre Olsdorf replied to the commissary of police that he would submit to all that was needful to be done.
After casting a glance around the room where this scene had passed, the commissary passed into the adjoining room to dictate to his secretary the report in which it was stated that in a bed-chamber of his house, Prince Olsdorf had been found with a young girl who had lived with him for more than a month and, that being questioned, the prince had not denied the allegation of adultery made against him.
An intelligent and well-known officer, the commissary felt that no search was necessary. Instinctively, perhaps, he suspected that he was not witnessing an ordinary conjugal drama, and he was willing to confine himself to doing what was strictly needful.
His report having been revised, read over to the prince, and countersigned by the two witnesses, the functionary took his leave without returning to the bed-chamber, where Vera taking literally the threat that had been made about her, had risen and dressed hurriedly without asking herself what was to become of her or where she would find shelter.
When Pierre Olsdorf, returning to the young girl, found her half dressed, sobbing, and nearly distracted with shame, he suddenly felt the wrong that he had done this unconscious maiden; he understood how cruel and blamable his conduct toward her had been.
The fact was that his actions had grown one out of the other by a chain of fatal logic. He could not bear--he, the irreproachable husband up to now--to pass for the lover of the first girl he could find, easy as it would have been to put his hand on one in Paris to play the part he would have had to offer her in this singular adventure. If he could have made up his mind to the association with so vile an accomplice, perhaps no one would have believed in his guilt, or would have found it very excusable. He wished, on the contrary, to appear doubly culpable, and had taken upon himself the responsibility of an act doubly blameworthy, legally and morally, for he could be accused not only of adultery but of the seduction and abduction of a young girl over whom he had, in some sort, authority, and whose innocence and beauty would be cause enough for his passion and forgetfulness of duty.