His lips grew pale, and his eyes blazed with fury.
"Thank you, doctor!" exclaimed he.

"Of course, the news is very welcome.
Good-by.

I must go to the Duchess at once." Instead of going to his wife, Norbert went and locked himself up in his own private apartment.

He had need to be alone, in order to look this fresh complication more fully in the face, and the more he reflected, the more convinced was he that he had been the dupe of a guilty woman.
He had begun by doubting, and he ended by being convinced that the child was not his.

Was he to accept this degraded position, and rear up as his own the child of George de Croisenois?
The child would grow up under his own roof-tree, bear his name, and finally inherit his title and gigantic fortune.