The bell rang a second time, and on this occasion the Baronne de Vibray hurried into the room, a radiant incarnation of gaiety.
"I am most dreadfully late!" she exclaimed, and was hurrying towards M. Etienne Rambert with outstretched hands, full of some amusing story she had to tell him, when she too caught sight of the strange lady standing stiffly in the corner of the room, with downcast eyes.
Etienne Rambert repressed his first emotion, smiled to the Baronne, and then went towards the mysterious lady.
"Madame," he said, not a muscle of his face moving, "may I trouble you to come into my study?"
"Who is that lady, M. Rambert?" said Thérèse when presently M. Rambert came back into the drawing-room. "And how white you are!"
"I am rather tired, dear. I have had a great deal to do these last few days."
The Baronne de Vibray was full of instant apologies.
"It is all my fault," she exclaimed. "I am dreadfully sorry to have kept you up so late," and in a few minutes more the Baronne's car was speeding towards the rue Boissy-d'Anglais.
M. Rambert hurried back to his study, shut and locked the door behind him, and almost sprang towards the unknown lady, his fists clenched, his eyes starting out of his head.
"Papa!" the girl replied, and sank upon a sofa.
There was silence. Etienne Rambert seemed utterly dumbfounded.
"I won't, I won't remain disguised as a woman any longer. I've done with it. I cannot bear it!" the strange creature murmured.
"You must!" said Rambert harshly, imperiously. "I insist!"
The pseudo Mlle. Jeanne slowly took off the heavy wig that concealed her real features, and tore away the corsage that compressed her bosom, revealing the strong and muscular frame of a young man.
"No, I will not," replied the strange individual, to whom M. Rambert had not hesitated to give the name of Charles. "I would rather anything else happened."
"You have got to expiate," Etienne Rambert said with the same harshness.
"The expiation is too great," the young fellow answered. "The torture is unendurable."
"Charles," said M. Rambert very gravely, "do you forget that legally, civilly, you are dead?"
"I would a thousand times rather be really dead!" the unhappy lad exclaimed.
"Alas!" his father murmured, speaking very fast, "I thought your mind was more unhinged than it really is. I saved your life, regardless of all risk, because I thought you were insane, and now I know you are a criminal! Oh, yes, I know things, I know your life!"