Chapter Nineteen.

Chapter Nineteen.The Bishop’s Visit.Félicie’s untiring energy had really provided a very pretty welcome for the bishop. She had collected all the children far and near, given them flags and garlands of vine to carry, and grouped them at the entrance of the château. Raoul was there, kept quiet by the fond belief that he was acting as colonel, and, much to his aunt’s distress, steadily persistent in refusing to carry anything except his sword. The sight, with the old grey château behind, and the gayly coloured swarm of little creatures in front, was charming, and so the bishop said to his chaplain as he drove up, and set all the aprons and hats waving. Then Léon with the abbé and two neighbouring vicaires advanced to the door of the carriage to welcome him, and, smiling and blessing his little flock with uplifted hand, monseigneur passed into the house to be received by the ladies of the family.To Nathalie the prospect of a guest, in a time of such perplexity and trouble, had seemed a terrible ordeal, but Mme. de Beaudrillart thought that to put off the bishop’s visit would be at once to excite surprise in the neighbourhood, and Léon had taken the same view. They had curtailed their intended hospitalities, however, and only some half a dozen of the principal people of the neighbourhood, with the clergy already at the château, were invited to dinner.Nathalie had once beheld the bishop in the cathedral at Tours, immediately after he was installed, but it was at a distance, and she had only been aware of a large man, who wore his gorgeous vestments with a magnificent air. Now that she saw him close at hand, she was immediately attracted by the strength and charm of his expression, and by a breadth of kindliness which she had not anticipated. He, on his part, was a sympathetic reader of faces, and he had not been five minutes in the house before he had convinced himself that the shadow of sorrow rested upon the family. Mme. de Beaudrillart’s usual rigid dignity was shaken by an emotion which looked like that of fear, and the sadness of sleepless nights hung heavy on Nathalie’s eyes, while Léon was white and nervous, talking hastily and restlessly, and unable to keep still for many consecutive minutes. Félicie was the only one who had forgotten their troubles in delight at the achievement of her purpose, and it must be owned that her respectful colourless chatter bored the bishop frightfully, the more so because he took himself to task for his impatience. He was much more interested in the others with their evident impending trouble, even in Mlle. Claire’s sharp, bitter speeches. Raoul attracted his notice at once, and he praised him warmly to his grandmother, but Mme. de Beaudrillart’s face did not lighten; he even fancied that he had unconsciously touched the wound, whatever it was. With the young wife he had no opportunity of speaking, and, indeed, she had learned silence when strangers were present; he noticed, however, that her eyes rested constantly on her husband, and that when he left the room she immediately slipped out after him. The evening was not gay, though Mme. Lemballe vied with Félicie in devoted homage, and M. and Mme. de la Ferraye did their best in a languishing conversation.That night a tremendous thunder-storm broke over the province, and torrents of rain fell to the north of Poissy. That only the fringe of the storm reached Poissy, Félicie always ascribed to a miraculous interposition on behalf of her cherished decorations, but the proof of its violence elsewhere was to be found in the swift rising of the river. It ran with wintry force, and from its darkened colour, and the vegetation it brought down, had evidently overflowed its banks higher up, and caused considerable damage. This, however, was the only grave result of the storm at Poissy. There the rain had merely been sufficient to freshen everything, and to give an indescribable brilliancy to the foliage. The great walnut-tree to the left of the château glistened in the morning sun, a fresh little breeze fluttered the poplars, and the lizards stole out again, and darted here and there in the crannies of the old stones.All Félicie’s dreams were carried out. The bishop officiated at high-mass, the white church was crowded with worshippers—M. Georges among the number—and the procession which conducted him afterwards to the little hospital which was to be opened for the very old people of the neighbourhood was thick with banners, and did credit to her training. Only one terrible disappointment came to her—the bishop, although he did not say much, managing to express his dislike to her paper flowers, and the gewgaws which decked the altar. She could scarcely keep back her tears, for there was no mistaking the few words he uttered, and to her own thinking the effect had been unequalled.Setting this aside, however, all had gone admirably; there was nothing, she felt sure, in which even Mme. Lemballe could pick a hole. And when they were all back at the château again, she was feverishly anxious for her reward in the shape of a private interview with, and a special blessing from, the bishop, together with instructions as to how the money for the next pilgrimage should be raised. But Claire, who was moodily wandering from room to room, gave her unwelcome intelligence.“Monseigneur is in the grounds talking to Nathalie, and his carriage is ordered in half an hour.”“To Nathalie! How has Nathalie got hold of him? What has she to do with him!”“As much as any of us, I suppose. And it is he who has got hold of her, for he asked to speak to her.”“Oh!” cried Félicie discomfited. The next moment she exclaimed: “I should not wonder in the least if he has heard of the books she reads. I shall be obliged to see him about the pilgrimage, and I dare say he will tell me.”Her sister looked at her in displeasure.“For pity’s sake, do not talk any more about those trifles! Do you never think of what is hanging over us?”Félicie took refuge in tears.“How unkind you are, Claire! Of course I think of it a great deal in my prayers. But I believe his Grandeur’s visit will bring a blessing, and this morning Léon seems quite himself again.”Claire flung back her head. “Sometimes I think,” she said, “that Léon has no soul, though of course you do not understand what I mean.”“No soul!” Félicie stared amazedly. Claire turned and hurried away.It was quite true, as Mlle. de Beaudrillart said, that the bishop had asked for young Mme. Léon, and that they were at that moment walking together in the kitchen-garden, between strawberry beds, of which the leaves were turning brown and bronze. More than ever, in the church, had her face, with its strength and sadness, interested him. He felt as if he could not leave that face behind without trying to bring a little comfort; and if there was a pinch of curiosity mixed with his never-failing sympathy, who will blame him? With womanlike tact he went straight to his point.“My daughter,” he said, “you are in trouble.”She answered him as directly. “Yes, monseigneur, in great trouble.”“Can you tell it to me!”This time she hesitated. “I do not know. It is not my own.”“No. It is your husband’s. Does it belong to his past or present!”“Oh, his past, poor Léon!”“One other question. Are you in doubt?”“Yes, monseigneur. For I urge him one way and all the others another—even my own father,” she sighed.“Whatever it is, I am certain she is in the right,” reflected the bishop. Aloud, he said, quietly: “If you like to tell me, you may safely do so.”She made a swift resolution, and she told him. He listened in amazement to the end.“Before I speak, will you let me hear what is your own counsel!”“I want him to meet the charge with the truth,” she said, “and to hide nothing.”“That is a difficult task for a man in your husband’s position,” said the bishop, walking along the path with his head bent and his hands clasped behind him, wondering.She sighed. “Very. And they are all against it. They think this Monsieur Lemaire may find it impossible to bring proofs, and they think also that from my birth I am no judge of the terrible indignity there would be if—if—”She paused and covered her face. The bishop said, very gently—“Yet you are ready to face this ordeal!”“Oh, I—I! I am no judge. If he were a beggar, it seems to me I should feel the same. But, oh, monseigneur, no wonder he shrinks. For him it is terrible!”They walked silently. The bishop, who had expected to have to give advice, noticed that she had not asked for it. “My daughter,” he said, “when I invited your confidence, it was because you said you were in doubt. But you do not speak doubtfully.”She turned to him quickly. “Whenever I put it into words, all doubt flies.”“So that if I were to say I thought you wrong, you would not change your opinion!”She was silent. He pressed her. “Tell me.”“No, monseigneur, I could not,” she said, scarcely audibly.“Well, then, let me tell you that you are right, splendidly right,” he said, his face brightened by his appreciation. “Do not let any one persuade you to the contrary. For your husband’s soul as well as for his honour, yours is the only saving course, and at whatever cost of suffering—for you will both suffer—hold fast to it. If ever, in any way, I can help you, send for me. I shall remember you in my prayers, and thank God that He has made you braver than most women—yet I ought not to say that, for you women put us to shame.”If Nathalie were womanlike in courage, she was womanlike in this also: that the moment she had got his approval, she began to doubt.“There is our boy,” she said. “When I remember him, I am ready to shrink.”“Will it do him good to have a father who sheltered himself behind a lie? Think only of that. My daughter, I do not fear for you. I believe that God will give you strength to prevail, but I wish I were permitted to help you.”“Monseigneur, you have helped me. Until now I have been alone, and to know that you are on my side—But I have kept you too long, and here comes Félicie.”“Ah,” said the bishop, smiling, “and she will have a great deal to say.”As the carriage with the bishop and his chaplain rolled out of the white gates, a man on horseback passed it, who had the appearance of having ridden hard. Léon, his wife, and his sisters were still standing by the entrance as he clattered up.“The Baron de Beaudrillart?” he said taking off his hat.“Here.” Léon stepped forward with a white face.“Monsieur Rodoin sent me down with this for monsieur,” he said, handing a letter.He tore it open.“I think it well to inform you that Monsieur Lemaire intends proceeding to extremes; that he has instructed the Procureur de la République, and that in all probability you will be arrested to-morrow or the next day. I have learned this from a sure source.”

Félicie’s untiring energy had really provided a very pretty welcome for the bishop. She had collected all the children far and near, given them flags and garlands of vine to carry, and grouped them at the entrance of the château. Raoul was there, kept quiet by the fond belief that he was acting as colonel, and, much to his aunt’s distress, steadily persistent in refusing to carry anything except his sword. The sight, with the old grey château behind, and the gayly coloured swarm of little creatures in front, was charming, and so the bishop said to his chaplain as he drove up, and set all the aprons and hats waving. Then Léon with the abbé and two neighbouring vicaires advanced to the door of the carriage to welcome him, and, smiling and blessing his little flock with uplifted hand, monseigneur passed into the house to be received by the ladies of the family.

To Nathalie the prospect of a guest, in a time of such perplexity and trouble, had seemed a terrible ordeal, but Mme. de Beaudrillart thought that to put off the bishop’s visit would be at once to excite surprise in the neighbourhood, and Léon had taken the same view. They had curtailed their intended hospitalities, however, and only some half a dozen of the principal people of the neighbourhood, with the clergy already at the château, were invited to dinner.

Nathalie had once beheld the bishop in the cathedral at Tours, immediately after he was installed, but it was at a distance, and she had only been aware of a large man, who wore his gorgeous vestments with a magnificent air. Now that she saw him close at hand, she was immediately attracted by the strength and charm of his expression, and by a breadth of kindliness which she had not anticipated. He, on his part, was a sympathetic reader of faces, and he had not been five minutes in the house before he had convinced himself that the shadow of sorrow rested upon the family. Mme. de Beaudrillart’s usual rigid dignity was shaken by an emotion which looked like that of fear, and the sadness of sleepless nights hung heavy on Nathalie’s eyes, while Léon was white and nervous, talking hastily and restlessly, and unable to keep still for many consecutive minutes. Félicie was the only one who had forgotten their troubles in delight at the achievement of her purpose, and it must be owned that her respectful colourless chatter bored the bishop frightfully, the more so because he took himself to task for his impatience. He was much more interested in the others with their evident impending trouble, even in Mlle. Claire’s sharp, bitter speeches. Raoul attracted his notice at once, and he praised him warmly to his grandmother, but Mme. de Beaudrillart’s face did not lighten; he even fancied that he had unconsciously touched the wound, whatever it was. With the young wife he had no opportunity of speaking, and, indeed, she had learned silence when strangers were present; he noticed, however, that her eyes rested constantly on her husband, and that when he left the room she immediately slipped out after him. The evening was not gay, though Mme. Lemballe vied with Félicie in devoted homage, and M. and Mme. de la Ferraye did their best in a languishing conversation.

That night a tremendous thunder-storm broke over the province, and torrents of rain fell to the north of Poissy. That only the fringe of the storm reached Poissy, Félicie always ascribed to a miraculous interposition on behalf of her cherished decorations, but the proof of its violence elsewhere was to be found in the swift rising of the river. It ran with wintry force, and from its darkened colour, and the vegetation it brought down, had evidently overflowed its banks higher up, and caused considerable damage. This, however, was the only grave result of the storm at Poissy. There the rain had merely been sufficient to freshen everything, and to give an indescribable brilliancy to the foliage. The great walnut-tree to the left of the château glistened in the morning sun, a fresh little breeze fluttered the poplars, and the lizards stole out again, and darted here and there in the crannies of the old stones.

All Félicie’s dreams were carried out. The bishop officiated at high-mass, the white church was crowded with worshippers—M. Georges among the number—and the procession which conducted him afterwards to the little hospital which was to be opened for the very old people of the neighbourhood was thick with banners, and did credit to her training. Only one terrible disappointment came to her—the bishop, although he did not say much, managing to express his dislike to her paper flowers, and the gewgaws which decked the altar. She could scarcely keep back her tears, for there was no mistaking the few words he uttered, and to her own thinking the effect had been unequalled.

Setting this aside, however, all had gone admirably; there was nothing, she felt sure, in which even Mme. Lemballe could pick a hole. And when they were all back at the château again, she was feverishly anxious for her reward in the shape of a private interview with, and a special blessing from, the bishop, together with instructions as to how the money for the next pilgrimage should be raised. But Claire, who was moodily wandering from room to room, gave her unwelcome intelligence.

“Monseigneur is in the grounds talking to Nathalie, and his carriage is ordered in half an hour.”

“To Nathalie! How has Nathalie got hold of him? What has she to do with him!”

“As much as any of us, I suppose. And it is he who has got hold of her, for he asked to speak to her.”

“Oh!” cried Félicie discomfited. The next moment she exclaimed: “I should not wonder in the least if he has heard of the books she reads. I shall be obliged to see him about the pilgrimage, and I dare say he will tell me.”

Her sister looked at her in displeasure.

“For pity’s sake, do not talk any more about those trifles! Do you never think of what is hanging over us?”

Félicie took refuge in tears.

“How unkind you are, Claire! Of course I think of it a great deal in my prayers. But I believe his Grandeur’s visit will bring a blessing, and this morning Léon seems quite himself again.”

Claire flung back her head. “Sometimes I think,” she said, “that Léon has no soul, though of course you do not understand what I mean.”

“No soul!” Félicie stared amazedly. Claire turned and hurried away.

It was quite true, as Mlle. de Beaudrillart said, that the bishop had asked for young Mme. Léon, and that they were at that moment walking together in the kitchen-garden, between strawberry beds, of which the leaves were turning brown and bronze. More than ever, in the church, had her face, with its strength and sadness, interested him. He felt as if he could not leave that face behind without trying to bring a little comfort; and if there was a pinch of curiosity mixed with his never-failing sympathy, who will blame him? With womanlike tact he went straight to his point.

“My daughter,” he said, “you are in trouble.”

She answered him as directly. “Yes, monseigneur, in great trouble.”

“Can you tell it to me!”

This time she hesitated. “I do not know. It is not my own.”

“No. It is your husband’s. Does it belong to his past or present!”

“Oh, his past, poor Léon!”

“One other question. Are you in doubt?”

“Yes, monseigneur. For I urge him one way and all the others another—even my own father,” she sighed.

“Whatever it is, I am certain she is in the right,” reflected the bishop. Aloud, he said, quietly: “If you like to tell me, you may safely do so.”

She made a swift resolution, and she told him. He listened in amazement to the end.

“Before I speak, will you let me hear what is your own counsel!”

“I want him to meet the charge with the truth,” she said, “and to hide nothing.”

“That is a difficult task for a man in your husband’s position,” said the bishop, walking along the path with his head bent and his hands clasped behind him, wondering.

She sighed. “Very. And they are all against it. They think this Monsieur Lemaire may find it impossible to bring proofs, and they think also that from my birth I am no judge of the terrible indignity there would be if—if—”

She paused and covered her face. The bishop said, very gently—“Yet you are ready to face this ordeal!”

“Oh, I—I! I am no judge. If he were a beggar, it seems to me I should feel the same. But, oh, monseigneur, no wonder he shrinks. For him it is terrible!”

They walked silently. The bishop, who had expected to have to give advice, noticed that she had not asked for it. “My daughter,” he said, “when I invited your confidence, it was because you said you were in doubt. But you do not speak doubtfully.”

She turned to him quickly. “Whenever I put it into words, all doubt flies.”

“So that if I were to say I thought you wrong, you would not change your opinion!”

She was silent. He pressed her. “Tell me.”

“No, monseigneur, I could not,” she said, scarcely audibly.

“Well, then, let me tell you that you are right, splendidly right,” he said, his face brightened by his appreciation. “Do not let any one persuade you to the contrary. For your husband’s soul as well as for his honour, yours is the only saving course, and at whatever cost of suffering—for you will both suffer—hold fast to it. If ever, in any way, I can help you, send for me. I shall remember you in my prayers, and thank God that He has made you braver than most women—yet I ought not to say that, for you women put us to shame.”

If Nathalie were womanlike in courage, she was womanlike in this also: that the moment she had got his approval, she began to doubt.

“There is our boy,” she said. “When I remember him, I am ready to shrink.”

“Will it do him good to have a father who sheltered himself behind a lie? Think only of that. My daughter, I do not fear for you. I believe that God will give you strength to prevail, but I wish I were permitted to help you.”

“Monseigneur, you have helped me. Until now I have been alone, and to know that you are on my side—But I have kept you too long, and here comes Félicie.”

“Ah,” said the bishop, smiling, “and she will have a great deal to say.”

As the carriage with the bishop and his chaplain rolled out of the white gates, a man on horseback passed it, who had the appearance of having ridden hard. Léon, his wife, and his sisters were still standing by the entrance as he clattered up.

“The Baron de Beaudrillart?” he said taking off his hat.

“Here.” Léon stepped forward with a white face.

“Monsieur Rodoin sent me down with this for monsieur,” he said, handing a letter.

He tore it open.

“I think it well to inform you that Monsieur Lemaire intends proceeding to extremes; that he has instructed the Procureur de la République, and that in all probability you will be arrested to-morrow or the next day. I have learned this from a sure source.”

Chapter Twenty.The River.There was a minute of dumb horror; then Félicie would have broken into lamentation before the messenger if Claire had not hastily signed to him to go round to the offices. Léon stood, ghastly white; his wife clasped his arm with both hands, and Félicie’s sobs, the only sound, came to her ears as distant as the rush of the river. Léon did not hear them at all. For the moment he was turned into stone, and his heart stood still. He had talked of it, dreaded it, but until this instant the horror of the thing had never really touched him. Arrested! He, Léon de Beaudrillart!He looked round at his wife, and her eyes met his with brave tenderness. But he wanted words, and he held the letter to her with piteously trembling hands. Every word had already burned itself into her brain. His lips faltered the words: “What does it mean?”If she could only have told him that it was a dreadful nightmare from which they would presently wake! The clasp on his arm tightened. She whispered:“Dear, we will meet it together.”Claire, who in spite of her anger against him, was listening breathlessly for some suggestion, turned away with a groan and rushed up-stairs to her mother’s room. She panted out:“We must think of a way of saving Léon. Nathalie is helpless, and if something is not done he will be arrested.” In the immediate face of danger Mme. de Beaudrillart’s iron will exerted itself. She was deadly pale, and she clutched the back of a chair; but her voice was unshaken as she put the quick question: “When? To-day?”“To-morrow.”“Then we must act. Bring them here.”They were already on the stairs. Léon came in first, his round face absolutely colourless, his limbs dragging. He tried to smile, but the effort only seemed to contort his features, and, stumbling forward, he sank into a chair, and stretched out the hand which held the letter to his mother. She read it with staring eyes, and when she spoke her voice sounded as if one metal struck another.“This is no time for crying out, or for tears,” she said. “Monsieur Rodoin has done very well in giving us warning, and he no doubt understands that you must not be arrested. What remains is to decide how to act, and then to act quickly. There has been too much delay already. I suppose the time for money is past—”“Owing to Nathalie,” murmured Claire.”—And only flight remains.”Léon lifted his head and looked at her with feverish eyes.“You must fly, my son. Apparently there are countries where you will be safe; I do not know which they are, but that can be ascertained. You must start at once, telling no one and going alone, until your wife can safely join you. This is the only way of escaping the worst degradation. Claire, you have a good head; do you not think with me?”“It is the one thing he can do for us,” said Claire, rigidly.“Félicie?”Félicie nodded, but was weeping too much to speak. Léon had buried his head in his hands, and his wife knelt by him, her eyes fixed on Mme. de Beaudrillart’s face.“You see we are all agreed, Léon,” his mother went on, vanquishing a catch in her voice. “My son, remember what you owe to your name, and act. Where will you go? to Bordeaux or Marseilles? If you could reach America—” Her voice failed, she stood trembling, while her lips formed the words she had not strength to utter. As for Léon, with a mute gesture of despair he turned and hid his face against his wife’s arm. The little dependent action gave her words. She started to her feet, her tall figure swaying, her whole frame one passionate protest.“You forget me, madame! I am not agreed. I say that he did not do this shameful thing, and that he shall not fly from it as if he were a coward. A De Beaudrillart a coward! Because there is one act of which he is ashamed, you want him to own to what is a hundred times worse! Léon, do not listen to them! For Raoul’s sake, do not listen to them! Dear love, be brave, live it down!” She dropped again by his side, gathering him to her heart, and with quivering lips kissing his hair, his hands. Claire would have answered angrily, but her mother stopped her.“You have a right to be heard,” she said to the young wife, “and we have, perhaps, all too much forgotten that you suffer too. But let us clearly understand each other. What is it that you suggest? That—that he submits to arrest?” Her voice dropped miserably.Nathalie made a mute sign of assent.“Then you think,” Mme. de Beaudrillart went on, in the same dry and mechanical tones, “that it will be found they have not sufficient evidence to prove what they—have to prove!”“I do not know,” said the wife, breathing hard. “I do not know. I only know that he must tell the truth.”His mother’s hands gripped her chair.“Acknowledge that—that he took the money?”“Yes. Because it is true.”A groan burst from Claire’s lips.“Impossible!” cried Mme. de Beaudrillart, with an agitation she had not yet shown. “Plead guilty!”Nathalie drove back anguish, recognising that all her strength was needed.“What would flight plead, madame? That would mean that he was guilty of everything.”“Yes,” the mother moaned. “His honour is lost. But he would escape the dreadful disgrace of punishment.”“All his life would be one miserable punishment—too heavy, because unjust. If he comes forward now, and tells the troth when it goes against him, has he not a much better chance of being believed when it is in his favour? There is the letter he wrote to Monsieur de Cadanet. May that not still be found among his papers?”Her heart was throbbing, and, holding him in her clasp, it was almost beyond her powers to speak calmly. Mme. de Beaudrillart’s self-control began to forsake her, and all unconsciously the sight of her son clinging to his wife impelled her into opposition. She cried out:“But suppose they will not believe! Suppose he is—” She choked at the word “convicted.”Nathalie felt her husband shiver, and pressed her lips on his hair.“He will bear it,” she breathed.“No, no,” cried his mother, starting up, “this is asking too much! You are no judge. You cannot tell what he, what we all, would suffer. Léon, speak! Flight is your only hope. Do not listen to your wife.”At this appeal he raised himself, and stared vacantly round the room. His eyes lit on Félicie, and a haggard smile crossed his face.“You had better not weep so much, Félicie; you will have no eyes left for your embroideries.”She broke into more poignant sobs, and cried out:“Mamma, must he go? Could we not hide him here somewhere?”“In perpetuity,” he muttered. “Nathalie is right, mother, in one thing, for flight would only condemn me, and I could not bear it. I should not be spared a single humiliation. Besides, in these days one must be unknown to hide successfully, and all that I should gain would be the being dragged back in ignominy.”Nathalie’s eyes were fixed anxiously upon him, her lips trembled, her shoulders contracted; it was as if she were trying to send strength from her soul to his, in his weak striving against fate.“I believe I know what I shall do,” he went on, in a mechanically dull voice; then suddenly starting up, clasped his hands across his burning eyes, his face ghastly pale. His words came out slowly, shortly. “Yes, do not fear, mother. I know what to do. Have a little patience. I shall think of our honour, believe me.” Then he reeled, and his wife caught his arm. She was as white as he, but all her trembling had gone.“Hush, Léon,” she said, firmly; “the shock has unnerved you so much that you do not know what you think or say. Whatever is done, even if you do go away as your mother wishes you, it could not be yet, for you could not reach the railway until dark; and you must have food. And if you stay, there is no use acting as though all were lost. Let him go to our room, madame, and come again to you later on. Come, dear love.”Mme. de Beaudrillart made no opposition, for her strength had failed her. With a face of anguish she watched them out of the door, and fell back in her chair, scarcely conscious. Félicie, still sobbing, busied herself about her mother, and ran to fetch a handful of leaves from her stores, with which to make a tisane. Claire, dry-eyed and tense, stood with her eyes fixed on the photograph of her father, which always rested on a small easel near her mother’s chair.“How unhappy we were when he died!” she said in a low voice, “and how much better it would have been if we had all died with him! I can never forgive Léon!”Mme. de Beaudrillart did not speak—she could not. With her not only pride but love was smitten low—so low that her usual emotions had lost their leaders, and wandered objectless. Despair seized her whichever way she looked, and, like Claire, she, too, wished for death.Léon submitted without resistance to his wife’s leading, clinging to her, indeed, as they passed along the passages to her room. The window leading into the stone balcony was open, and the whole air seemed to vibrate with the hoarse croaking of frogs from the pond beyond the kitchen-garden. Nathalie quietly closed it, and rang the bell. She stood at the door, and gave the astonished Rose-Marie directions to bring coffee at once, and, when it came, took it from her without allowing the girl to enter. Then she knelt by her husband, and coaxed him as if he were a child. He shuddered: “I cannot!”“Dear, only to please me. It will do your head so much good.”“There is a millwheel in my head. You see they are all falling away from me, so that even my mother will never be able to forgive.”“Do you know,” she said, trying to speak cheerfully, “I believe we are all making too much of it. What will you say if it comes to nothing, and the jury are clever enough to take the sensible view of the case? Why should this man make the charge when Monsieur de Cadanet is dead? You will see that will tell against him.”He groaned.“And if worst comes to the worst, your friends will know that you have told the truth, dear; they will not think evil of you. And you will have us—your mother and sisters, and Raoul, and me. Do not we count for anything? Do not—”He lifted his face and looked at her, and all her loving words stopped midway in her throat, and made a lump there. If she could have thought of herself she would have cried out to him to take away his eyes and their anguish, for if Léon’s soul had been wanting before, it had come to him now, and gazed at her; and it needs an angel or a devil to bear the sight of a human soul wrung with misery. Curiously enough, she felt all the time that if she had known about the world and its ways, her husband would have listened to her more readily. What she said to comfort him he set down to ignorance. One of his old companions with a jest and a laugh might have had a stronger influence than she with a bleeding heart. But this only made her try the more. She knew enough of Léon to be assured that silence would not soothe; she must talk, argue, entreat, go over the same ground again and again, appeal to his sentiment for them all, and this with a horrid fear deep within her to which she dared not allude, and scarcely dared to think of. He was not going to attempt to fly; so much she gathered. But that there was some rising purpose in his mind which was colouring his broken words and looks at her she was certain, and the certainty drove her almost mad with hidden fear. She made him drink a little coffee, which was something, and she wanted to bring Raoul to the rescue. But Raoul had gone off with the pony and Jacques Charpentier to see the last of the vintage at a distant farm, and would not be home until late—perhaps not till after dark.By this time all the household was aware that there was something wrong, though they had different opinions as to the what, but, with a feeble sort of pretence, dinner was gone through as usual. Mme. de Beaudrillart, however, went away before it was ended, and Nathalie detained Claire, to ask her if she would come to her room as soon as Raoul returned. She grew more and more uneasy.The lamp had been brought in before Claire appeared with the news that she had heard the pony pass the window a few minutes before. His wife glanced at Léon, but he sat, as he had sat for the last hour, his head buried on his arm, and she hoped that, worn out, he might be sleeping. She signed to Claire to speak to her outside the door.“Please don’t leave him, even for a minute,” she whispered, and flew down the stairs.Rain was falling at last, and though Jacques had sheltered Raoul with his own coat, the boy was wet. His mother hurried him up the stairs, his laugh ringing out so strangely in the sorrow-stilled house that she almost hushed it. But she did not, because she thought within herself that a child’s laugh is a healthy thing, and that the sound might drive away other things not so healthy. She left the door of his room open, however, and kept her ears on the alert, while she hustled him into dry clothes, and then, holding his hand, ran along the passages to the room where she had left her husband and Claire. Claire met her at the door.“He is gone,” she said, in a frightened whisper.“You left him?”“Only for a minute. He asked me to get him a newspaper from down-stairs, and when I came back the window was open—”Nathalie rocked as she stood, caught at the wall, and said, with a gasp: “Take the boy to your mother, and don’t frighten her.” Then she ran—how she ran!—though to this hour she thinks her feet were tied together.In three minutes she had found Jacques in the stable. He thought a ghost was upon him till she spoke.“Your master is out somewhere, and I think he is going to kill himself. You and I must find him.”Jacques understood at once. He had known that some calamity was at hand. He snatched up the stable-lantern, went outside, locked the door, and put his question:“Had he his pistols, madame?”“No.”“Then I believe he will have gone to the river.”“I know it, I know it!” she cried, wildly. “But where!” Jacques muttered to himself, “He would go to the bridge, because it is at its deepest, but there is no use in following him there; one must strike it lower down.” He caught up a long rake which stood against the wall. “Come, madame.” The rain had been swept off by a strong breeze, and the moon made the leaves glisten like diamonds, and flung deep shadows under the trees. The two hurried round in front of the château, and plunged into the heavy wet gloom which brooded round the garden. Nathalie’s cry, “Léon, Léon!” at first timid, rose sharper as they left the house behind them; then she remembered the whistle which she used as a call for her husband, and blew shrilly.“That is better,” said the gardener, encouragingly. He had kicked off his shoes and stockings before Mme. Léon came out, and ran all the easier, his steps falling with a soft thud. That, the croaking of frogs, the soft hoot of owls, and the rush of the river were the only sounds, and to the wife’s strained ears the silence seemed full of strange significance.Suddenly Jacques stopped.“Go round by the bridge, madame. I shall take the bank.”“I am coming with you,” she said, determinedly.He raised no further objection, and they went where she and Jean had followed Raoul not so long ago, down a dark abyss of underwood which snatched at them as they pushed through it, slipping and sliding on the wet ground, her dress torn by briars and sharp twigs. Here and there, as they parted the branches, they caught a gleam of the river running, fiercely swollen, below, the moon striking the swift current, and leaving the darkness on either side more impenetrable. Several times Nathalie fell, but she repelled her companion’s help almost angrily, catching at the branches, and trying to add her feeble voice to the gardener’s shouts. When they reached the river it was like coming out into the day, the freakish moonlight falling in a flood of light on the grass, and bringing into clear distinctness the broad burdocks and mulleins which spread themselves near the water, while it left a fringe of poplars lower down on the other side in misty shadow. Jacques knew the river well, and had hastily made up his mind. Close to the spot where they were was a shallow into which he could wade, a spot where, when the river was in flood, things brought down by the current were often recoverable, caught as they were by a few stakes driven in at that point. It might be—But how the river ran, how it ran! What a slender hope was here! Their thoughts, though they had sprung together to this point, might be all unfounded; they might already be too late, or Léon might be lying, stiff and ghastly, in some gloomy shadow close to which they had passed unknowing. Jacques stood for a moment considering, and with the foolish inconsequence of misery Nathalie found herself noticing how white his bare feet looked in the moonlight, sunk as they were in the wet grass.“I will stay here with the pole, madame,” he said. “Will you go up towards the bridge, and whistle for me if there is need?”She was gone before he had finished, stumbling along, her staring eyes devouring the waters as they rushed by her; and she had not gone twenty yards before Jacques heard a scream, a splash, and, running to the spot, found her up to her knees in the water among the flags, clutching something which rose and fell, and, when it rose, turned a white face to the moonlight.

There was a minute of dumb horror; then Félicie would have broken into lamentation before the messenger if Claire had not hastily signed to him to go round to the offices. Léon stood, ghastly white; his wife clasped his arm with both hands, and Félicie’s sobs, the only sound, came to her ears as distant as the rush of the river. Léon did not hear them at all. For the moment he was turned into stone, and his heart stood still. He had talked of it, dreaded it, but until this instant the horror of the thing had never really touched him. Arrested! He, Léon de Beaudrillart!

He looked round at his wife, and her eyes met his with brave tenderness. But he wanted words, and he held the letter to her with piteously trembling hands. Every word had already burned itself into her brain. His lips faltered the words: “What does it mean?”

If she could only have told him that it was a dreadful nightmare from which they would presently wake! The clasp on his arm tightened. She whispered:

“Dear, we will meet it together.”

Claire, who in spite of her anger against him, was listening breathlessly for some suggestion, turned away with a groan and rushed up-stairs to her mother’s room. She panted out:

“We must think of a way of saving Léon. Nathalie is helpless, and if something is not done he will be arrested.” In the immediate face of danger Mme. de Beaudrillart’s iron will exerted itself. She was deadly pale, and she clutched the back of a chair; but her voice was unshaken as she put the quick question: “When? To-day?”

“To-morrow.”

“Then we must act. Bring them here.”

They were already on the stairs. Léon came in first, his round face absolutely colourless, his limbs dragging. He tried to smile, but the effort only seemed to contort his features, and, stumbling forward, he sank into a chair, and stretched out the hand which held the letter to his mother. She read it with staring eyes, and when she spoke her voice sounded as if one metal struck another.

“This is no time for crying out, or for tears,” she said. “Monsieur Rodoin has done very well in giving us warning, and he no doubt understands that you must not be arrested. What remains is to decide how to act, and then to act quickly. There has been too much delay already. I suppose the time for money is past—”

“Owing to Nathalie,” murmured Claire.

”—And only flight remains.”

Léon lifted his head and looked at her with feverish eyes.

“You must fly, my son. Apparently there are countries where you will be safe; I do not know which they are, but that can be ascertained. You must start at once, telling no one and going alone, until your wife can safely join you. This is the only way of escaping the worst degradation. Claire, you have a good head; do you not think with me?”

“It is the one thing he can do for us,” said Claire, rigidly.

“Félicie?”

Félicie nodded, but was weeping too much to speak. Léon had buried his head in his hands, and his wife knelt by him, her eyes fixed on Mme. de Beaudrillart’s face.

“You see we are all agreed, Léon,” his mother went on, vanquishing a catch in her voice. “My son, remember what you owe to your name, and act. Where will you go? to Bordeaux or Marseilles? If you could reach America—” Her voice failed, she stood trembling, while her lips formed the words she had not strength to utter. As for Léon, with a mute gesture of despair he turned and hid his face against his wife’s arm. The little dependent action gave her words. She started to her feet, her tall figure swaying, her whole frame one passionate protest.

“You forget me, madame! I am not agreed. I say that he did not do this shameful thing, and that he shall not fly from it as if he were a coward. A De Beaudrillart a coward! Because there is one act of which he is ashamed, you want him to own to what is a hundred times worse! Léon, do not listen to them! For Raoul’s sake, do not listen to them! Dear love, be brave, live it down!” She dropped again by his side, gathering him to her heart, and with quivering lips kissing his hair, his hands. Claire would have answered angrily, but her mother stopped her.

“You have a right to be heard,” she said to the young wife, “and we have, perhaps, all too much forgotten that you suffer too. But let us clearly understand each other. What is it that you suggest? That—that he submits to arrest?” Her voice dropped miserably.

Nathalie made a mute sign of assent.

“Then you think,” Mme. de Beaudrillart went on, in the same dry and mechanical tones, “that it will be found they have not sufficient evidence to prove what they—have to prove!”

“I do not know,” said the wife, breathing hard. “I do not know. I only know that he must tell the truth.”

His mother’s hands gripped her chair.

“Acknowledge that—that he took the money?”

“Yes. Because it is true.”

A groan burst from Claire’s lips.

“Impossible!” cried Mme. de Beaudrillart, with an agitation she had not yet shown. “Plead guilty!”

Nathalie drove back anguish, recognising that all her strength was needed.

“What would flight plead, madame? That would mean that he was guilty of everything.”

“Yes,” the mother moaned. “His honour is lost. But he would escape the dreadful disgrace of punishment.”

“All his life would be one miserable punishment—too heavy, because unjust. If he comes forward now, and tells the troth when it goes against him, has he not a much better chance of being believed when it is in his favour? There is the letter he wrote to Monsieur de Cadanet. May that not still be found among his papers?”

Her heart was throbbing, and, holding him in her clasp, it was almost beyond her powers to speak calmly. Mme. de Beaudrillart’s self-control began to forsake her, and all unconsciously the sight of her son clinging to his wife impelled her into opposition. She cried out:

“But suppose they will not believe! Suppose he is—” She choked at the word “convicted.”

Nathalie felt her husband shiver, and pressed her lips on his hair.

“He will bear it,” she breathed.

“No, no,” cried his mother, starting up, “this is asking too much! You are no judge. You cannot tell what he, what we all, would suffer. Léon, speak! Flight is your only hope. Do not listen to your wife.”

At this appeal he raised himself, and stared vacantly round the room. His eyes lit on Félicie, and a haggard smile crossed his face.

“You had better not weep so much, Félicie; you will have no eyes left for your embroideries.”

She broke into more poignant sobs, and cried out:

“Mamma, must he go? Could we not hide him here somewhere?”

“In perpetuity,” he muttered. “Nathalie is right, mother, in one thing, for flight would only condemn me, and I could not bear it. I should not be spared a single humiliation. Besides, in these days one must be unknown to hide successfully, and all that I should gain would be the being dragged back in ignominy.”

Nathalie’s eyes were fixed anxiously upon him, her lips trembled, her shoulders contracted; it was as if she were trying to send strength from her soul to his, in his weak striving against fate.

“I believe I know what I shall do,” he went on, in a mechanically dull voice; then suddenly starting up, clasped his hands across his burning eyes, his face ghastly pale. His words came out slowly, shortly. “Yes, do not fear, mother. I know what to do. Have a little patience. I shall think of our honour, believe me.” Then he reeled, and his wife caught his arm. She was as white as he, but all her trembling had gone.

“Hush, Léon,” she said, firmly; “the shock has unnerved you so much that you do not know what you think or say. Whatever is done, even if you do go away as your mother wishes you, it could not be yet, for you could not reach the railway until dark; and you must have food. And if you stay, there is no use acting as though all were lost. Let him go to our room, madame, and come again to you later on. Come, dear love.”

Mme. de Beaudrillart made no opposition, for her strength had failed her. With a face of anguish she watched them out of the door, and fell back in her chair, scarcely conscious. Félicie, still sobbing, busied herself about her mother, and ran to fetch a handful of leaves from her stores, with which to make a tisane. Claire, dry-eyed and tense, stood with her eyes fixed on the photograph of her father, which always rested on a small easel near her mother’s chair.

“How unhappy we were when he died!” she said in a low voice, “and how much better it would have been if we had all died with him! I can never forgive Léon!”

Mme. de Beaudrillart did not speak—she could not. With her not only pride but love was smitten low—so low that her usual emotions had lost their leaders, and wandered objectless. Despair seized her whichever way she looked, and, like Claire, she, too, wished for death.

Léon submitted without resistance to his wife’s leading, clinging to her, indeed, as they passed along the passages to her room. The window leading into the stone balcony was open, and the whole air seemed to vibrate with the hoarse croaking of frogs from the pond beyond the kitchen-garden. Nathalie quietly closed it, and rang the bell. She stood at the door, and gave the astonished Rose-Marie directions to bring coffee at once, and, when it came, took it from her without allowing the girl to enter. Then she knelt by her husband, and coaxed him as if he were a child. He shuddered: “I cannot!”

“Dear, only to please me. It will do your head so much good.”

“There is a millwheel in my head. You see they are all falling away from me, so that even my mother will never be able to forgive.”

“Do you know,” she said, trying to speak cheerfully, “I believe we are all making too much of it. What will you say if it comes to nothing, and the jury are clever enough to take the sensible view of the case? Why should this man make the charge when Monsieur de Cadanet is dead? You will see that will tell against him.”

He groaned.

“And if worst comes to the worst, your friends will know that you have told the truth, dear; they will not think evil of you. And you will have us—your mother and sisters, and Raoul, and me. Do not we count for anything? Do not—”

He lifted his face and looked at her, and all her loving words stopped midway in her throat, and made a lump there. If she could have thought of herself she would have cried out to him to take away his eyes and their anguish, for if Léon’s soul had been wanting before, it had come to him now, and gazed at her; and it needs an angel or a devil to bear the sight of a human soul wrung with misery. Curiously enough, she felt all the time that if she had known about the world and its ways, her husband would have listened to her more readily. What she said to comfort him he set down to ignorance. One of his old companions with a jest and a laugh might have had a stronger influence than she with a bleeding heart. But this only made her try the more. She knew enough of Léon to be assured that silence would not soothe; she must talk, argue, entreat, go over the same ground again and again, appeal to his sentiment for them all, and this with a horrid fear deep within her to which she dared not allude, and scarcely dared to think of. He was not going to attempt to fly; so much she gathered. But that there was some rising purpose in his mind which was colouring his broken words and looks at her she was certain, and the certainty drove her almost mad with hidden fear. She made him drink a little coffee, which was something, and she wanted to bring Raoul to the rescue. But Raoul had gone off with the pony and Jacques Charpentier to see the last of the vintage at a distant farm, and would not be home until late—perhaps not till after dark.

By this time all the household was aware that there was something wrong, though they had different opinions as to the what, but, with a feeble sort of pretence, dinner was gone through as usual. Mme. de Beaudrillart, however, went away before it was ended, and Nathalie detained Claire, to ask her if she would come to her room as soon as Raoul returned. She grew more and more uneasy.

The lamp had been brought in before Claire appeared with the news that she had heard the pony pass the window a few minutes before. His wife glanced at Léon, but he sat, as he had sat for the last hour, his head buried on his arm, and she hoped that, worn out, he might be sleeping. She signed to Claire to speak to her outside the door.

“Please don’t leave him, even for a minute,” she whispered, and flew down the stairs.

Rain was falling at last, and though Jacques had sheltered Raoul with his own coat, the boy was wet. His mother hurried him up the stairs, his laugh ringing out so strangely in the sorrow-stilled house that she almost hushed it. But she did not, because she thought within herself that a child’s laugh is a healthy thing, and that the sound might drive away other things not so healthy. She left the door of his room open, however, and kept her ears on the alert, while she hustled him into dry clothes, and then, holding his hand, ran along the passages to the room where she had left her husband and Claire. Claire met her at the door.

“He is gone,” she said, in a frightened whisper.

“You left him?”

“Only for a minute. He asked me to get him a newspaper from down-stairs, and when I came back the window was open—”

Nathalie rocked as she stood, caught at the wall, and said, with a gasp: “Take the boy to your mother, and don’t frighten her.” Then she ran—how she ran!—though to this hour she thinks her feet were tied together.

In three minutes she had found Jacques in the stable. He thought a ghost was upon him till she spoke.

“Your master is out somewhere, and I think he is going to kill himself. You and I must find him.”

Jacques understood at once. He had known that some calamity was at hand. He snatched up the stable-lantern, went outside, locked the door, and put his question:

“Had he his pistols, madame?”

“No.”

“Then I believe he will have gone to the river.”

“I know it, I know it!” she cried, wildly. “But where!” Jacques muttered to himself, “He would go to the bridge, because it is at its deepest, but there is no use in following him there; one must strike it lower down.” He caught up a long rake which stood against the wall. “Come, madame.” The rain had been swept off by a strong breeze, and the moon made the leaves glisten like diamonds, and flung deep shadows under the trees. The two hurried round in front of the château, and plunged into the heavy wet gloom which brooded round the garden. Nathalie’s cry, “Léon, Léon!” at first timid, rose sharper as they left the house behind them; then she remembered the whistle which she used as a call for her husband, and blew shrilly.

“That is better,” said the gardener, encouragingly. He had kicked off his shoes and stockings before Mme. Léon came out, and ran all the easier, his steps falling with a soft thud. That, the croaking of frogs, the soft hoot of owls, and the rush of the river were the only sounds, and to the wife’s strained ears the silence seemed full of strange significance.

Suddenly Jacques stopped.

“Go round by the bridge, madame. I shall take the bank.”

“I am coming with you,” she said, determinedly.

He raised no further objection, and they went where she and Jean had followed Raoul not so long ago, down a dark abyss of underwood which snatched at them as they pushed through it, slipping and sliding on the wet ground, her dress torn by briars and sharp twigs. Here and there, as they parted the branches, they caught a gleam of the river running, fiercely swollen, below, the moon striking the swift current, and leaving the darkness on either side more impenetrable. Several times Nathalie fell, but she repelled her companion’s help almost angrily, catching at the branches, and trying to add her feeble voice to the gardener’s shouts. When they reached the river it was like coming out into the day, the freakish moonlight falling in a flood of light on the grass, and bringing into clear distinctness the broad burdocks and mulleins which spread themselves near the water, while it left a fringe of poplars lower down on the other side in misty shadow. Jacques knew the river well, and had hastily made up his mind. Close to the spot where they were was a shallow into which he could wade, a spot where, when the river was in flood, things brought down by the current were often recoverable, caught as they were by a few stakes driven in at that point. It might be—But how the river ran, how it ran! What a slender hope was here! Their thoughts, though they had sprung together to this point, might be all unfounded; they might already be too late, or Léon might be lying, stiff and ghastly, in some gloomy shadow close to which they had passed unknowing. Jacques stood for a moment considering, and with the foolish inconsequence of misery Nathalie found herself noticing how white his bare feet looked in the moonlight, sunk as they were in the wet grass.

“I will stay here with the pole, madame,” he said. “Will you go up towards the bridge, and whistle for me if there is need?”

She was gone before he had finished, stumbling along, her staring eyes devouring the waters as they rushed by her; and she had not gone twenty yards before Jacques heard a scream, a splash, and, running to the spot, found her up to her knees in the water among the flags, clutching something which rose and fell, and, when it rose, turned a white face to the moonlight.

Chapter Twenty One.Out of the Depths.There was no sign of life as with difficulty they dragged him out of the water. His hands were tied together by a handkerchief, drawn to a knot, as Jacques guessed, by his teeth. His saturated clothes were pulling him down, and it was the catch of his sleeve in a protruding stake which had held him for a few minutes, and shown him to his wife’s searching eyes. In the river she had fancied he moved, mistaking the movements with which it mocked its plaything for life, but on the grass he lay motionless. Still she kept her presence of mind, and gave directions, telling the gardener to run to the nearest house across the bridge for help. It was nearer than the château.“I know what to do,” she said, kneeling down. “I have done it before.”“But alone, madame?”“Go, go, and bring blankets with you.”He went reluctantly, running along the bank without any hope in his heart. “First his father, and now Monsieur Léon,” he reflected. “Poor madame, it will be the death of her! And what lies behind? I must make it out to have been an accident, if it comes to breaking down a rail of the bridge.” Help was not at first to be found, and it was old Antoine who at last started at a run for the spot, while Jacques got blankets at another cottage. When he reached the spot again, Mme. Léon was so stiff and numbed that she could scarcely move her husband’s arms up and down, and she made him a sign to watch her and take her place.“Ah, madame!” said the gardener, sorrowfully.She did not hear him. She was bending over the motionless body, laying her hand on his chest, listening. Old Antoine was reflecting that she had certainly gone mad, and that if monsieur le baron was not drowned beyond hope of recovery, there would be more sense in rubbing him with blankets, and pouring brandy down his throat, when suddenly Nathalie lifted her head. “Keep on, keep on!” she cried to the gardener, “I am sure that he breathes!”Twenty minutes later Claire, wretchedly flitting across the terrace, cried out with terror at seeing a figure swathed in blankets carried towards the house. A woman ran in front, drenched, ghastly, who cried out as she came near:“He is alive! Get his bed and hot things ready!”Yes, he lived; and when the first moment of relief was over, Claire felt as if it might have been better had Nathalie not been there to call him back to dishonour. She did as she was told, but with no eagerness of love, feeling, indeed, as if all love for her brother had been killed in her heart. It was not so, for, thank God, love does not die so easily, but it gave her a fierce sense of satisfaction to believe it.They did not tell Mme. de Beaudrillart that night how near he had been to death; though perhaps, poor woman, when she heard that monsieur le baron, in going to look at the river in its turbulence, had leaned upon a rotten rail, and had slipped into the stream, she guessed. Jacques went back at once that night, under pretence of its being unsafe for chance passers-by, and managed to break down and roughly mend again a piece of the railing. Old Antoine came by as he was at his work, and chuckled.“So you are acting up to your name, Monsieur Charpentier, he, he, he! Strange that I should never have seen the hole as I passed, he, he, he!”“Your eyes are not so good as they were, Antoine,” said the gardener, coolly.“No, that’s true; and it’s natural the glass of good beer I got up there should have improved their sight. Well, I’m not a talker.”“I’d keep to that if I were you,” said Jacques, whistling, “for we all know you’re a good deal besides. If you don’t see all you might, the saints know whether monsieur le baron has not looked at you with his eyes shut! There, that will do till the morning. Good-night, Antoine. You can tell your neighbours that monsieur le baron was leaning over to see if it was all right, when the rail gave way, and gave him a bad wetting. And when the next storm blows down a few branches up by the château you may have them for your store in the winter. I’ll see about it. Old fox!” he muttered, as he turned away. “But I think that will muzzle him. If all else could be as easily put right! Or if one only knew what Monsieur Léon did it for! But perhaps now he will take it quieter, whatever it was.”Through the night Nathalie watched her husband, sore misery in her heart, and her young limbs aching. The latter part of it he slept well, and when he woke in the morning he was himself again—something more than himself, she thought, indeed, after he had called to her.“Nathalie!”“Dear.”“Is it true? Did you save me?”“Jacques and I.”He said no more, but lay watching her. Presently he exclaimed: “How you have suffered!”She shuddered. She knew that the hours had written on her face with lines which, come what would, would never be erased. She took his hand in both hers. “Léon, I want you to promise me something.”“That I won’t do it again? Well, I promise. I did not think any one could care so much. It seemed the best way for myself; but when I was in the water—” He stopped, and went on in a minute: “It struck me as rather a sneaky way of getting out of it.”She sank down by his side, and buried her face in her arms. “It was cruel, cruel to those who love you!”He put out his hand and touched her gently.“You really love me so much! Still!”“Still? Oh, Léon, more than ever!”She heard him murmuring to himself as if wondering. “More than ever! Well,” he went on, raising himself on his elbow, “I owe you something for sticking to me. You shall have your way.”With a sudden cry of tenderness and pity, Nathalie flung her arms round him and sobbed. At that moment what a way it seemed! Was she right? Could she give him up? She was speechless, thankful, miserable, all at once, and, seeing it, he tried to jest a little.“Suggest what I shall put on for the occasion—my best or my oldest coat! One has no precedent to go by—”She interrupted him, eagerly: “Léon, let us go to Paris.”“Thrust my head into the lion’s mouth?”“Whatever—whatever happens, it will not be so terrible for you there as here—at Poissy. Telegraph to Monsieur Rodoin, and he will let them know that you are coming up by the morning express—if you are strong enough to travel.”“Yes, yes!” he cried, with sudden energy, “you are right. Then my mother—Poissy—will be spared something of humiliation. Send off a messenger at once with the telegram, and order the carriage in an hour. And—and, Nathalie, let them know, keep them away; I cannot bear my mother’s reproaches.”They fell on her; Claire’s with stinging sharpness, but the conflict in her own heart had this effect that words did not succeed in wounding. Mme. de Beaudrillart was more passive; it struck Nathalie that the blow had stunned her, and that physically her stately height had shrunk. She kept in her own room, sending only a message to her son that she could not wish him good-bye. Félicie wandered miserably about, suggesting impossible plans, though unable to realise that anything so terrible as Claire suggested could fall on Poissy. “If only Monsieur Georges were here, I am sure he would think of something, or if only I might go and ask the abbé! If Nathalie had attended more to his advice, and less to those dreadful books of hers, this would never have been permitted to come upon us. There they are in her room still, in spite of all that monseigneur said.”Claire stared. “How do you know he said anything!”“What else can he have had to say? He asked me whether it was not a great pleasure to have my sister-in-law with us, and I said I was afraid she held very strange opinions, so of course he spoke.”“Oh, I wish you wouldn’t talk!” cried Claire, irritably. “Have they gone?”“They would not go so unceremoniously,”—Félicie was strong in etiquette. “Besides,”—she broke again into sobs—“dear, dear Léon could not leave us without a single word!”It was a strange farewell when the carriage drove round: Léon kissing his sisters; Félicie clinging to him; Claire white, cold, and impassive as she presented her cheek. At the gates stood Jacques, hat off, sadness on his face. When they had gone a short distance, Léon turned impulsively and looked back. The gardener was in the road, gazing after them; behind him rose a frowning Poissy, for the day was sunless, the stone had lost its mellow tint, and the roof was dark and unbeautiful. Léon shivered.“Are you cold?” asked Nathalie, anxiously. She was afraid that the night might have left a chill, and wrapped the rug round him.“I do not think that will warm me,” he said, with a smile which she felt to be piteous.They had driven a mile before he asked whether she would like to leave word at her father’s. “We have time.”But Nathalie refused. She did not tell him that she did not dare face the possibility of an outburst from M. Bourget, but she owned that she knew he would disapprove of the course they had taken.“It seems to me that every one disapproves,” he muttered, restlessly.Then Nathalie took a resolution.“I am afraid you will be angry with me,” she said, timidly, “but when the bishop was at Poissy he saw that something was wrong, and spoke to me. I was sure he was to be trusted, and I told him.”“Ah, you are a woman,” said Léon, who told everything. But he said it with a smile.“He was very kind, and helped me,” she went on, more freely. “And he—he did not disapprove. I believe he thought it was the most noble act that you could do.”Léon turned his face to her, pleased as a child at praise, though he only said, “Ah?”His spirits rose almost to their old level when they were in the train. He had a power which she envied, of letting himself be distracted by the events of the moment; and while, as the train neared Paris, a painful tension held her limbs in a vice, he might have been on an errand differing in no degree from one of every-day importance.The train ran smoothly into the station as he laid down a newspaper with a remark on a scene in the Chambers. Standing on the platform, Nathalie recognised M. Rodoin. He came hastily towards them, and at the same moment she saw two men approach. M. Rodoin said, in a low tone: “There will be no open scandal. They know that you have come voluntarily, and we can all go together as far as the carriage. You have acted courageously, Monsieur de Beaudrillart, and I honour you. Trust to me to see to madame.”Nathalie’s throat was parched, her head swam; but now, more than ever, she must call her fortitude to her aid. At the door of the carriage she kissed her husband, even smiled at him, though with quivering lips.“God bless you, Léon; I shall be near.”White, mute, confused, he stepped into the carriage; one man followed him, the other clambered to the box, and they rolled away.

There was no sign of life as with difficulty they dragged him out of the water. His hands were tied together by a handkerchief, drawn to a knot, as Jacques guessed, by his teeth. His saturated clothes were pulling him down, and it was the catch of his sleeve in a protruding stake which had held him for a few minutes, and shown him to his wife’s searching eyes. In the river she had fancied he moved, mistaking the movements with which it mocked its plaything for life, but on the grass he lay motionless. Still she kept her presence of mind, and gave directions, telling the gardener to run to the nearest house across the bridge for help. It was nearer than the château.

“I know what to do,” she said, kneeling down. “I have done it before.”

“But alone, madame?”

“Go, go, and bring blankets with you.”

He went reluctantly, running along the bank without any hope in his heart. “First his father, and now Monsieur Léon,” he reflected. “Poor madame, it will be the death of her! And what lies behind? I must make it out to have been an accident, if it comes to breaking down a rail of the bridge.” Help was not at first to be found, and it was old Antoine who at last started at a run for the spot, while Jacques got blankets at another cottage. When he reached the spot again, Mme. Léon was so stiff and numbed that she could scarcely move her husband’s arms up and down, and she made him a sign to watch her and take her place.

“Ah, madame!” said the gardener, sorrowfully.

She did not hear him. She was bending over the motionless body, laying her hand on his chest, listening. Old Antoine was reflecting that she had certainly gone mad, and that if monsieur le baron was not drowned beyond hope of recovery, there would be more sense in rubbing him with blankets, and pouring brandy down his throat, when suddenly Nathalie lifted her head. “Keep on, keep on!” she cried to the gardener, “I am sure that he breathes!”

Twenty minutes later Claire, wretchedly flitting across the terrace, cried out with terror at seeing a figure swathed in blankets carried towards the house. A woman ran in front, drenched, ghastly, who cried out as she came near:

“He is alive! Get his bed and hot things ready!”

Yes, he lived; and when the first moment of relief was over, Claire felt as if it might have been better had Nathalie not been there to call him back to dishonour. She did as she was told, but with no eagerness of love, feeling, indeed, as if all love for her brother had been killed in her heart. It was not so, for, thank God, love does not die so easily, but it gave her a fierce sense of satisfaction to believe it.

They did not tell Mme. de Beaudrillart that night how near he had been to death; though perhaps, poor woman, when she heard that monsieur le baron, in going to look at the river in its turbulence, had leaned upon a rotten rail, and had slipped into the stream, she guessed. Jacques went back at once that night, under pretence of its being unsafe for chance passers-by, and managed to break down and roughly mend again a piece of the railing. Old Antoine came by as he was at his work, and chuckled.

“So you are acting up to your name, Monsieur Charpentier, he, he, he! Strange that I should never have seen the hole as I passed, he, he, he!”

“Your eyes are not so good as they were, Antoine,” said the gardener, coolly.

“No, that’s true; and it’s natural the glass of good beer I got up there should have improved their sight. Well, I’m not a talker.”

“I’d keep to that if I were you,” said Jacques, whistling, “for we all know you’re a good deal besides. If you don’t see all you might, the saints know whether monsieur le baron has not looked at you with his eyes shut! There, that will do till the morning. Good-night, Antoine. You can tell your neighbours that monsieur le baron was leaning over to see if it was all right, when the rail gave way, and gave him a bad wetting. And when the next storm blows down a few branches up by the château you may have them for your store in the winter. I’ll see about it. Old fox!” he muttered, as he turned away. “But I think that will muzzle him. If all else could be as easily put right! Or if one only knew what Monsieur Léon did it for! But perhaps now he will take it quieter, whatever it was.”

Through the night Nathalie watched her husband, sore misery in her heart, and her young limbs aching. The latter part of it he slept well, and when he woke in the morning he was himself again—something more than himself, she thought, indeed, after he had called to her.

“Nathalie!”

“Dear.”

“Is it true? Did you save me?”

“Jacques and I.”

He said no more, but lay watching her. Presently he exclaimed: “How you have suffered!”

She shuddered. She knew that the hours had written on her face with lines which, come what would, would never be erased. She took his hand in both hers. “Léon, I want you to promise me something.”

“That I won’t do it again? Well, I promise. I did not think any one could care so much. It seemed the best way for myself; but when I was in the water—” He stopped, and went on in a minute: “It struck me as rather a sneaky way of getting out of it.”

She sank down by his side, and buried her face in her arms. “It was cruel, cruel to those who love you!”

He put out his hand and touched her gently.

“You really love me so much! Still!”

“Still? Oh, Léon, more than ever!”

She heard him murmuring to himself as if wondering. “More than ever! Well,” he went on, raising himself on his elbow, “I owe you something for sticking to me. You shall have your way.”

With a sudden cry of tenderness and pity, Nathalie flung her arms round him and sobbed. At that moment what a way it seemed! Was she right? Could she give him up? She was speechless, thankful, miserable, all at once, and, seeing it, he tried to jest a little.

“Suggest what I shall put on for the occasion—my best or my oldest coat! One has no precedent to go by—”

She interrupted him, eagerly: “Léon, let us go to Paris.”

“Thrust my head into the lion’s mouth?”

“Whatever—whatever happens, it will not be so terrible for you there as here—at Poissy. Telegraph to Monsieur Rodoin, and he will let them know that you are coming up by the morning express—if you are strong enough to travel.”

“Yes, yes!” he cried, with sudden energy, “you are right. Then my mother—Poissy—will be spared something of humiliation. Send off a messenger at once with the telegram, and order the carriage in an hour. And—and, Nathalie, let them know, keep them away; I cannot bear my mother’s reproaches.”

They fell on her; Claire’s with stinging sharpness, but the conflict in her own heart had this effect that words did not succeed in wounding. Mme. de Beaudrillart was more passive; it struck Nathalie that the blow had stunned her, and that physically her stately height had shrunk. She kept in her own room, sending only a message to her son that she could not wish him good-bye. Félicie wandered miserably about, suggesting impossible plans, though unable to realise that anything so terrible as Claire suggested could fall on Poissy. “If only Monsieur Georges were here, I am sure he would think of something, or if only I might go and ask the abbé! If Nathalie had attended more to his advice, and less to those dreadful books of hers, this would never have been permitted to come upon us. There they are in her room still, in spite of all that monseigneur said.”

Claire stared. “How do you know he said anything!”

“What else can he have had to say? He asked me whether it was not a great pleasure to have my sister-in-law with us, and I said I was afraid she held very strange opinions, so of course he spoke.”

“Oh, I wish you wouldn’t talk!” cried Claire, irritably. “Have they gone?”

“They would not go so unceremoniously,”—Félicie was strong in etiquette. “Besides,”—she broke again into sobs—“dear, dear Léon could not leave us without a single word!”

It was a strange farewell when the carriage drove round: Léon kissing his sisters; Félicie clinging to him; Claire white, cold, and impassive as she presented her cheek. At the gates stood Jacques, hat off, sadness on his face. When they had gone a short distance, Léon turned impulsively and looked back. The gardener was in the road, gazing after them; behind him rose a frowning Poissy, for the day was sunless, the stone had lost its mellow tint, and the roof was dark and unbeautiful. Léon shivered.

“Are you cold?” asked Nathalie, anxiously. She was afraid that the night might have left a chill, and wrapped the rug round him.

“I do not think that will warm me,” he said, with a smile which she felt to be piteous.

They had driven a mile before he asked whether she would like to leave word at her father’s. “We have time.”

But Nathalie refused. She did not tell him that she did not dare face the possibility of an outburst from M. Bourget, but she owned that she knew he would disapprove of the course they had taken.

“It seems to me that every one disapproves,” he muttered, restlessly.

Then Nathalie took a resolution.

“I am afraid you will be angry with me,” she said, timidly, “but when the bishop was at Poissy he saw that something was wrong, and spoke to me. I was sure he was to be trusted, and I told him.”

“Ah, you are a woman,” said Léon, who told everything. But he said it with a smile.

“He was very kind, and helped me,” she went on, more freely. “And he—he did not disapprove. I believe he thought it was the most noble act that you could do.”

Léon turned his face to her, pleased as a child at praise, though he only said, “Ah?”

His spirits rose almost to their old level when they were in the train. He had a power which she envied, of letting himself be distracted by the events of the moment; and while, as the train neared Paris, a painful tension held her limbs in a vice, he might have been on an errand differing in no degree from one of every-day importance.

The train ran smoothly into the station as he laid down a newspaper with a remark on a scene in the Chambers. Standing on the platform, Nathalie recognised M. Rodoin. He came hastily towards them, and at the same moment she saw two men approach. M. Rodoin said, in a low tone: “There will be no open scandal. They know that you have come voluntarily, and we can all go together as far as the carriage. You have acted courageously, Monsieur de Beaudrillart, and I honour you. Trust to me to see to madame.”

Nathalie’s throat was parched, her head swam; but now, more than ever, she must call her fortitude to her aid. At the door of the carriage she kissed her husband, even smiled at him, though with quivering lips.

“God bless you, Léon; I shall be near.”

White, mute, confused, he stepped into the carriage; one man followed him, the other clambered to the box, and they rolled away.

Chapter Twenty Two.Before the Trial.When Nathalie, by a strong effort of will, succeeded in calling back her thoughts from following her husband, her eyes fell upon M. Rodoin, who sat respectfully opposite to her in his own carriage. The change in the lawyer’s manner was indeed remarkable. When Léon had consulted him before, in spite of his outward politeness her keen intuition had detected a certain veiled distrust which had annoyed her, while it was too impalpable to be openly noticed. She had been convinced that he disbelieved his client’s story; and twenty times had wished that her husband’s case had been in other hands. She had looked at him with disfavour, taking exception to the coldness of his expression and the eccentricity of his nose, which, starting on a straight line, suddenly towards the end developed an upward turned knob, on which the eye fastened itself to the exclusion of his other features, and which seemed to accentuate the air of incredulity which displeased her. The knob, it need hardly be said, remained, but it had acquired so different an expression that although she read anxiety in the look with which he regarded her, its general tenor was that of unmistakable pity and good-will.When he saw that she was giving him her attention, he leaned forward and said, abruptly:“Yes, my dear lady, I congratulate you. Your husband is acting with extreme courage, but you should not be alone.”“Servants talk,” she said, quietly.“There are his sisters?”“Ah, but they were strongly opposed to his coming. So was my father, and you yourself, Monsieur Rodoin, permit me to say, did not suggest it.”He put up his hand. “Your reproach is quite justified. Honestly, I did not believe that Monsieur de Beaudrillart would ever run so counter to the traditions of his family as to take so sensible a course. No, madame, do not suppose I am speaking offensively. No Beaudrillart would be deficient in courage; but this required another form of courage—one which they would be slow to recognise as such; it surprised me beyond words when your telegram was put into my hands. If it was your doing, madame—”He bowed respectfully, his knowledge of men recognising in the new lines in Nathalie’s beautiful face what the struggle had cost her; but she scarcely heard his words. She put her head out of the window as they rattled over the stones, trying to catch a last glimpse of the carriage which contained her husband. It was but of sight, and her next question was almost a sob:“Where do they take him, monsieur?”“To the Palais de Justice.” And as she shuddered, he added: “You will have ample opportunities of seeing him. Do not fear.”“To-night?”“To-morrow, I hope.”“Meanwhile we must think, we must act for him,” she said, driving back her own anguish. “Who do you suggest for his counsel!”“Madame, there can be no better than Maître Barraud, and I went to him on receipt of your telegram. He was so touched by the baron’s action that he at last consented. The Procureur de la République is Maître Miron.”“He is terribly formidable!” cried Nathalie.“It is impossible to deny it; both are of the first rank, and I own frankly that I do not think there is a sou to choose between them. But I am quite content to have secured my man. One thing is necessary, and I should like you to impress it strongly upon monsieur le baron: that he must be absolutely frank with Maître Barraud, place the matter clearly in his hands, and permit himself no reservations.”She smiled faintly.“Reservations are at an end, Monsieur Rodoin.”“All the better. Our one chance lies in perfect openness. We tell our story as it happened; it is for the jury to judge of the probabilities. Unfortunately, we must bear in mind that it is not always truth which carries the most innocent face. This Lemaire has a lie tucked away somewhere, and he will naturally take more pains with it than with any other part of his case. But if once Maître Barraud gets his finger on it he will have it out.”“The lie,” said Nathalie, calmly, “says that my husband never repaid the money.”M. Rodoin waited for the rattle of passing cabs to subside before he replied.“I do not know.”She started, flushing crimson. “Monsieur! you do not know!”“Ah, madame, hear me patiently! I am sure that Monsieur de Beaudrillart repaid it—though I wish to Heaven he had insisted upon proper forms and claimed a receipt—but we must allow that it is quite possible that Monsieur Lemaire never heard of the repayment. He says he was told of the affair by the count; that I take leave to doubt, for it seems to me an extraordinary revengeful act for a dying man, after he had kept silence for six years, to put the reputation of his cousin at the mercy of another. I prefer to believe that Monsieur Lemaire contrived to ferret out some of the facts, and to jump at other conclusions. And I base my opinion a good deal upon what I have found out of the man’s life.”“Yes! Pray go on,” said Nathalie, leaning forward, her eyes fixed upon him.“He is a gambler, extravagant, worthless. His debts amount to a sum which his inheritance from Monsieur de Cadanet will hardly liquidate, and here you have a motive for the action. He is a neglectful husband—said by some to be absolutely unkind. Certainly his wife does not present the appearance of a very happy woman.”“Might there not be something among Monsieur de Cadanet’s papers?”“Monsieur Lemaire is executor,” returned the lawyer, significantly. “However, we shall not neglect any possibility.” She fell into a long silence, which he did not attempt to break. Among all the De Beaudrillarts, past and present, who had ever consulted him, he had met with none in whom he felt so deep an interest as in this young baroness. He had liked the honesty of her hazel eyes before, but the divine sympathy he read in them as she looked after her husband appealed more directly to his heart. Not for years had he felt sentiment so near gaining the upper hand.“Madame,” he exclaimed at last, “surely your father would be an excellent person to have with you! Permit me to telegraph for him.”She made a sign in the negative.“It would not do, monsieur. My poor father is bitterly disappointed. He was so proud of my position, of the future of his little grandson, that he cannot forgive us for failing him. It is difficult to explain, and it may seem only laughable to you, but I think he was more Beaudrillart than the De Beaudrillarts. He would reproach my husband, he would think of nothing but the disgrace—no, he must not come.”“I am wondering—”“What?”“You must have had a heavy task among so many opposing forces, madame—I am wondering what you had on your side!”“My husband’s better self,” she said, turning her eyes on his. “But you may conceive that it was difficult for him to fly in the face of a hundred prejudices.”“Difficult for you, too,” reflected the lawyer. Aloud he said: “Well, madame, courage. Whatever happens we are on the right road, and it is evident that you know best how to guard the honour of the De Beaudrillarts. But I wish I could persuade you to make my house your home. Madame Rodoin would be only too much gratified.” He uttered his last sentence with a gulp, truth presenting itself in forcible contradiction, and it must be owned that Nathalie’s immediate negative relieved him.“I pass many hours alone, monsieur,” she said, with a flitting smile, “so do not waste your thoughts on me when there is so much besides to arrange. If you can find me some task I cannot tell you how grateful I should be. Is there any possible point on which I could be of assistance?”“We shall find something,” declared M. Rodoin, mendaciously.“And I shall see Maître Barraud?”They were in the Avenue de l’Opéra; Paris, brilliant, indifferent Paris, spread its gay attractions on either side.“Oddly enough, there he goes,” said the lawyer. She bent forward eagerly.“That man? With the face of a boy?”“Ah, madame, never mind his face. It makes a good mask. But you will certainly see him. He will have an interview with your husband to-morrow, and I will arrange for your own as soon as possible. Here we are in the Rue Neuve Saint Augustin, and here is your hotel. Will you make me one promise?”“Let me hear.”“To eat and to sleep.”“That is two,” she said, trying to smile, “but I will try.”“Ill, you will only be an added anxiety to Monsieur de Beaudrillart.”“Yes. I shall not be ill. I am stronger than you can conceive. It frightens me, sometimes, to find how much I can bear.”M. Rodoin saw her ensconced in her rooms at the hotel, and gave his address to the landlord, in case madame wanted anything. He bade her farewell with the words, “We shall triumph!” but his solitary reflections, as he drove towards his own house, were far from cheerful. “Unless some miracle happens, it is a lost case already,” he muttered, “and so Barraud thinks, and chafes. Yet there’s roguery somewhere, I’ll stake my head. If one only knew what proof Lemaire means to bring forward, or what one has to fight against! It matters nothing; we must fight somehow. After she has achieved the miracle of endowing my young baron with a backbone, what other miracles may not follow! And meanwhile—” He plunged his head in his hands and sat revolving, considering, rejecting. He hurried in the evening to Maître Barraud, and brought upon himself the imprecations of his friend, who was just issuing from his door, cigar in hand, on his way to the Opéra.“Plague me more about this confounded Beaudrillart case, and I swear I’ll fling the whole thing up. Man, there’s a time for all things.”“But, my dear Albert—”The other waved his cigar.“Not a word. If you had not unfortunately known me from my cradle, and basely traded upon that privilege, I should never have been saddled with a preposterously hopeless muddle, out of which there is nothing to be got but discomfiture.”“When you have seen Madame Léon—”“Madame Léon!” The young man uttered a smothered roar. “Out upon you! It is a few well-applied tears, is it, which has set you to pester your friends?”“No, mocker! Madame Léon is a woman who acts, and does not weep. But you must see her, if only to give her confidence; for, unluckily, I pointed you out to her as she drove to the hotel to-day, and she took you for a boy.”Maître Barraud was an excellent fellow, but his weakness was vanity.“A boy!” he repeated, in a nettled voice. “A boy! I should like her to know—Well, what is all this about? Of course I must see the woman in order to scrape together a few materials upon which to string as many words as there are onions on the stick a Breton carries over his shoulder. And I know what I shall get out of the interview: protestations, and exclamations, and maunderings about false accusations, and an ill-used angel of a husband, and all the lot of it. Peste! a woman at the back of a case is the very devil!”“Some day, my dear friend, Madame Barraud will have her revenge.”“Heaven forbid! At any rate, her charming figure has not yet presented itself upon the horizon. Here is the Opéra, and now I presume I shall be left in peace. Take with you my assurance that your client will be condemned to a fine and a year’s imprisonment. He will get off with that because it was six years ago, and our juries, bless them! have a sneaking sympathy for the follies of youth.”He waved his hand, and ran lightly up the steps, while M. Rodoin proceeded thoughtfully on his way, resisting the impulse to turn into the Rue Neuve Saint Augustin, and learn whether Mme. Léon had obeyed his injunction to dine.She had forced herself to this, but the sleeping was a different matter. Exhausted as she was by the emotions of the previous night, she flung herself on her bed, hoping to lose the too vivid consciousness with which her mind busied itself round her husband’s cruel position. For an hour she slept. But in that time a storm of wind and rain had risen, and the rattling of the window and the lashing torrent which beat against the outer shutters aroused her with the startled fancy that the fierce gurgle of the river was again in her ears. Alas! the remembrance of where her husband was spending this night was scarcely less painful. She slipped out of bed, and fell on her knees by its side. The tears at which Maître Barraud had mocked, and which she had so long restrained, now broke from her with a violence almost suffocating. She pictured his forlorn misery, the horror of mind which would seize him afresh whenever he realised where and what he was; she imagined she even heard him cursing her for having forced this fate upon him. Other wives of whom she had read had risked everything to save their husbands from prison; she had made it her task to persuade him to yield himself deliberately to its disgrace. A profound pity moved her. She knew that she was stronger than he with his light, butterfly nature. If only she could have sinned and suffered for him! She could think of herself in a cell without shrinking, while to picture him there was agony; and her sobs and prayers redoubled at the sad figure which rose before her eyes.The tears which exhausted relieved her, but she slept no more. She lay turning in her heart what she could do for Léon, and conscious of her own weakness. She had not yet forgotten her former discontent with M. Rodoin—although she was forced to allow that this time he had presented himself as a different man—and the sight of Maître Barraud had caused her extreme dismay. In his round, chubby face she had seen nothing to inspire confidence; she distrusted the lawyer’s assurances, and the idea of Léon’s fate having been committed to a mere boy added intolerably to her anxiety, and flung more responsibility upon her own shoulders. If, as M. Rodoin appeared to think, the trial would be brought on very shortly, there could scarcely be time to change counsel, but she promised herself to consult the lawyer as to the possibility of engaging another of more experience.She had not the opportunity for this, however, as soon as she desired; for after waiting in extreme impatience for M. Rodoin’s appearance, and for the permission to see her husband, which she trusted he might bring, he came at about twelve o’clock, and Maître Barraud with him.The young counsel had, it must be owned, the air of a dog dragged with extreme unwillingness by his chain, or, as it rather appeared to Nathalie, that of a school-boy in the sulks. Although she could never lose the nobility of her expression, the sorrow and sleeplessness through which she had passed had robbed the young wife of much of her beauty, and left her pale, with dark rings round her eyes, and he was obstinately determined not to behold the charm of which M. Rodoin raved. He was enraged with her, too, for her allusion to a sore subject—his boyish appearance—while as this forced itself upon her again, she found it difficult to conceal her dismay. But her first question was as to the interview.“There is no difficulty,” M. Rodoin assured her. “You can see your husband between two and three. Maître Barraud has just come from him.”“Oh, monsieur!” She turned to him eagerly. “You have seen him! How is he? How does he look? Has he slept?”The young man flung a glance at his friend, which said, “Did I not tell you? See what you have brought upon me!” and answered aloud, with a certain brusqueness, “Apparently, madame, monsieur le baron is in his usual health, but my inquiries did not take that direction.”She coloured.“Pardon, monsieur; I should have remembered that the situation is not so novel to you as to us. Did—did your other inquiries give you the information you require?”Deaf to the tremor in her voice, Maître Barraud shrugged his shoulders, and looked more like a naughty boy than ever.“No, madame,” he said, “I cannot say that I have got much, and I shall be obliged if you will give me your own account of the case—as shortly as possible,” he added, in alarm.Nathalie felt no temptation to discursiveness; there was too much pain in the recital. When she had finished, he hastily got up.“You do not want anything more, I imagine, madame?” he asked, looking at his watch.“One word, monsieur. If—if you find yourself in want of any assistance—I scarcely know how to express it—you will, I trust, not spare expense—we should wish my husband to have the best, the very best advice and experience—”“Oh, thanks, madame,” returned M. Barraud carelessly. “I shall have the usual juniors; M. Rodoin will take care of that. You are coming?” he added, severely to his friend.“I will return, madame, and drive you to the Palais de Justice,” said the lawyer, bowing respectfully over her hand. The next moment she was alone.“His juniors!” The words sounded like a mockery, and Nathalie gazed despairingly at the door out of which this mannerless boy had betaken himself. The idea that Léon’s interests should be in his hands was so terrible that when M. Rodoin appeared, punctual to his hour, she met him with reproaches.“But, madame, madame,” cried the amazed lawyer, “you are under some extraordinary misapprehension! Maître Barraud’s reputation is world-wide; France has no greater pleader; we are only too fortunate—owing, I may say, to my friendship with his father—to have secured him!”“At his age!” exclaimed Nathalie, incredulously. “Monsieur, it is impossible! And he does not give one the idea of a man of power.”“Oh, if that is all, I assure you, madame, that you may console yourself. He has his eccentricities, and one is a dislike to being taken seriously in private. As to his youth, certainly he is young for his position, though older than he looks. But that is only a proof of his amazing talents. No, no, madame, you may be perfectly at your ease as to Maître Barraud. If any one can right this unhappy business, he is the man. Shall we start?”The poor wife scarcely knew how the interval between leaving the hotel and arriving at the Palais de Justice was passed. She had a confused impression of streets, of walls, of eyes which she felt to be full of curiosity, however much reason assured her that there was nothing in the carriage to attract attention. Like a sleep-walker, she got out of the carriage when it stopped, and followed M. Rodoin along passages and up stairs which to him were long familiar. She noticed nothing; when he stopped, she stopped; when he went on, she followed. Details were lost upon her, and the first thing which seemed to bring back her benumbed senses was the finding herself in her husband’s arms.That roused her, and she had a momentary rapture before she flung back her head to let her eyes devour his face. It was white, and, in spite of its roundness, haggard, but not more so than when she left him. She had lost the proportion of the past days, and her feeling was that they had been parted for weeks.“How do they treat you?” she whispered, glancing round. “Not so badly.” He tried to speak cheerfully. “Beyond having to put up with a lot of questions intended to make me own myself a rascal, I have not much to complain of. Have you written home!”“This morning.”“And so have I; but with the conviction that one’s letters are read, it is not possible to be very effusive.”“And, oh, Léon, Maître Barraud!”“What of him?” He spoke quickly, and M. Rodoin, who had kept discreetly in the background, advanced, smiling.“Madame would be more happy if she could have your assurances, monsieur le baron, that he is really an eminent man. His appearance affronts her.”“He is so ridiculously young!” persisted Nathalie.“Oh, he is all right. But I do not think he is hopeful. Who can be?” muttered Léon, running his hands through his hair, and losing his momentary elation. “Now that you have made me give myself away, what is there to say?”Her only answer was a mute caress, and a cautious cough from M. Rodoin was intended to point out that in prisons, at any rate, walls may have ears. The lawyer remarked, in an undertone:“If any one can turn this Lemaire inside out and destroy his credit, it will be Albert Barraud.”“Oh, the scoundrel will have got his story pat.”“We shall demand to examine Monsieur de Cadanet’s banking accounts,” went on the other. “If there is an entry of two hundred thousand francs about the date of your repayment, it will be to a certain extent a corroboration. Had the count absolutely no confidential servant in the house?”Léon shook his head. “To my knowledge, none.”“Madame Lemaire was married at the time?”Nathalie raised her head from her husband’s shoulder.“Has he a wife?”“Poor woman, yes. At any rate, monsieur le baron has drawn the teeth of their principal witness, the concierge who was carrying the letters. If it were only as a matter of expediency,” he went on, addressing Léon, “your admission has, beyond a doubt, weakened their case. Somehow or other they had proof up to a certain point; Maître Barraud was convinced of it. Beyond this they can have none, and the rope lies slack in their hands.”“Ah, yes, listen, my friend!” cried Nathalie, joyfully.Léon had made an effort, strange to his nature, to control himself and spare his wife in their interview. He had been inexpressibly touched by the swiftness of rescue she had brought to his aid on that terrible night. He knew that at this moment she was wearing gloves, lest his eyes should be offended by the cuts and scratches on her hands. He had strung himself heroically to the point of concealing his misery, and of letting her suppose that the worst was past. But, as is often the case, he resented a cheerful view on her part, and could not allow her, even for an instant, to lighten the weight of the situation. In a moment he was plunged into black gloom, and assuring her that whatever happened he could never survive the humiliation of the trial. M. Rodoin discreetly withdrew to the farthest limits, and stood regarding a black spot on the wall. He turned a deaf ear as well as a back, but he could not help hearing a confused murmur of pleading words, sighs, groans, and muttered exclamations of misery. The lawyer fidgeted, looked at his watch, and took a sudden resolution. He turned round sharply.“Monsieur le baron,” he said, brusquely, “permit me to point out that if you kill madame before the trial, there, will be one good head the less on our side. That is all.”“Monsieur!” cried Nathalie, reproachfully.“Yes, yes, madame, I am perfectly aware that most women’s hearts are as tough as leather, and yours may be among them, but there are exceptions. It will be awkward if yours should turn out an exception. Monsieur Léon would do well to recollect this, and, also, that the complication is one of his own making.”The young man straightened himself.“You hit—hard, Monsieur Rodoin,” he said, breathing heavily.“Because I never in my life esteemed you half so much as I do now, monsieur,” said the lawyer, in a low voice, “or pitied you less. You committed a wrong act, so have many of us. You have the courage to expiate it, as many of us have not. You will gain the respect of honest men, and you have your wife’s devoted love. Allons, monsieur, whatever happens, you are not so much to be pitied. The time is up; here comes the warder. Madame will never forgive me for what I have had the presumption to say; nevertheless, she and I will go and cogitate over the best line of defence.”

When Nathalie, by a strong effort of will, succeeded in calling back her thoughts from following her husband, her eyes fell upon M. Rodoin, who sat respectfully opposite to her in his own carriage. The change in the lawyer’s manner was indeed remarkable. When Léon had consulted him before, in spite of his outward politeness her keen intuition had detected a certain veiled distrust which had annoyed her, while it was too impalpable to be openly noticed. She had been convinced that he disbelieved his client’s story; and twenty times had wished that her husband’s case had been in other hands. She had looked at him with disfavour, taking exception to the coldness of his expression and the eccentricity of his nose, which, starting on a straight line, suddenly towards the end developed an upward turned knob, on which the eye fastened itself to the exclusion of his other features, and which seemed to accentuate the air of incredulity which displeased her. The knob, it need hardly be said, remained, but it had acquired so different an expression that although she read anxiety in the look with which he regarded her, its general tenor was that of unmistakable pity and good-will.

When he saw that she was giving him her attention, he leaned forward and said, abruptly:

“Yes, my dear lady, I congratulate you. Your husband is acting with extreme courage, but you should not be alone.”

“Servants talk,” she said, quietly.

“There are his sisters?”

“Ah, but they were strongly opposed to his coming. So was my father, and you yourself, Monsieur Rodoin, permit me to say, did not suggest it.”

He put up his hand. “Your reproach is quite justified. Honestly, I did not believe that Monsieur de Beaudrillart would ever run so counter to the traditions of his family as to take so sensible a course. No, madame, do not suppose I am speaking offensively. No Beaudrillart would be deficient in courage; but this required another form of courage—one which they would be slow to recognise as such; it surprised me beyond words when your telegram was put into my hands. If it was your doing, madame—”

He bowed respectfully, his knowledge of men recognising in the new lines in Nathalie’s beautiful face what the struggle had cost her; but she scarcely heard his words. She put her head out of the window as they rattled over the stones, trying to catch a last glimpse of the carriage which contained her husband. It was but of sight, and her next question was almost a sob:

“Where do they take him, monsieur?”

“To the Palais de Justice.” And as she shuddered, he added: “You will have ample opportunities of seeing him. Do not fear.”

“To-night?”

“To-morrow, I hope.”

“Meanwhile we must think, we must act for him,” she said, driving back her own anguish. “Who do you suggest for his counsel!”

“Madame, there can be no better than Maître Barraud, and I went to him on receipt of your telegram. He was so touched by the baron’s action that he at last consented. The Procureur de la République is Maître Miron.”

“He is terribly formidable!” cried Nathalie.

“It is impossible to deny it; both are of the first rank, and I own frankly that I do not think there is a sou to choose between them. But I am quite content to have secured my man. One thing is necessary, and I should like you to impress it strongly upon monsieur le baron: that he must be absolutely frank with Maître Barraud, place the matter clearly in his hands, and permit himself no reservations.”

She smiled faintly.

“Reservations are at an end, Monsieur Rodoin.”

“All the better. Our one chance lies in perfect openness. We tell our story as it happened; it is for the jury to judge of the probabilities. Unfortunately, we must bear in mind that it is not always truth which carries the most innocent face. This Lemaire has a lie tucked away somewhere, and he will naturally take more pains with it than with any other part of his case. But if once Maître Barraud gets his finger on it he will have it out.”

“The lie,” said Nathalie, calmly, “says that my husband never repaid the money.”

M. Rodoin waited for the rattle of passing cabs to subside before he replied.

“I do not know.”

She started, flushing crimson. “Monsieur! you do not know!”

“Ah, madame, hear me patiently! I am sure that Monsieur de Beaudrillart repaid it—though I wish to Heaven he had insisted upon proper forms and claimed a receipt—but we must allow that it is quite possible that Monsieur Lemaire never heard of the repayment. He says he was told of the affair by the count; that I take leave to doubt, for it seems to me an extraordinary revengeful act for a dying man, after he had kept silence for six years, to put the reputation of his cousin at the mercy of another. I prefer to believe that Monsieur Lemaire contrived to ferret out some of the facts, and to jump at other conclusions. And I base my opinion a good deal upon what I have found out of the man’s life.”

“Yes! Pray go on,” said Nathalie, leaning forward, her eyes fixed upon him.

“He is a gambler, extravagant, worthless. His debts amount to a sum which his inheritance from Monsieur de Cadanet will hardly liquidate, and here you have a motive for the action. He is a neglectful husband—said by some to be absolutely unkind. Certainly his wife does not present the appearance of a very happy woman.”

“Might there not be something among Monsieur de Cadanet’s papers?”

“Monsieur Lemaire is executor,” returned the lawyer, significantly. “However, we shall not neglect any possibility.” She fell into a long silence, which he did not attempt to break. Among all the De Beaudrillarts, past and present, who had ever consulted him, he had met with none in whom he felt so deep an interest as in this young baroness. He had liked the honesty of her hazel eyes before, but the divine sympathy he read in them as she looked after her husband appealed more directly to his heart. Not for years had he felt sentiment so near gaining the upper hand.

“Madame,” he exclaimed at last, “surely your father would be an excellent person to have with you! Permit me to telegraph for him.”

She made a sign in the negative.

“It would not do, monsieur. My poor father is bitterly disappointed. He was so proud of my position, of the future of his little grandson, that he cannot forgive us for failing him. It is difficult to explain, and it may seem only laughable to you, but I think he was more Beaudrillart than the De Beaudrillarts. He would reproach my husband, he would think of nothing but the disgrace—no, he must not come.”

“I am wondering—”

“What?”

“You must have had a heavy task among so many opposing forces, madame—I am wondering what you had on your side!”

“My husband’s better self,” she said, turning her eyes on his. “But you may conceive that it was difficult for him to fly in the face of a hundred prejudices.”

“Difficult for you, too,” reflected the lawyer. Aloud he said: “Well, madame, courage. Whatever happens we are on the right road, and it is evident that you know best how to guard the honour of the De Beaudrillarts. But I wish I could persuade you to make my house your home. Madame Rodoin would be only too much gratified.” He uttered his last sentence with a gulp, truth presenting itself in forcible contradiction, and it must be owned that Nathalie’s immediate negative relieved him.

“I pass many hours alone, monsieur,” she said, with a flitting smile, “so do not waste your thoughts on me when there is so much besides to arrange. If you can find me some task I cannot tell you how grateful I should be. Is there any possible point on which I could be of assistance?”

“We shall find something,” declared M. Rodoin, mendaciously.

“And I shall see Maître Barraud?”

They were in the Avenue de l’Opéra; Paris, brilliant, indifferent Paris, spread its gay attractions on either side.

“Oddly enough, there he goes,” said the lawyer. She bent forward eagerly.

“That man? With the face of a boy?”

“Ah, madame, never mind his face. It makes a good mask. But you will certainly see him. He will have an interview with your husband to-morrow, and I will arrange for your own as soon as possible. Here we are in the Rue Neuve Saint Augustin, and here is your hotel. Will you make me one promise?”

“Let me hear.”

“To eat and to sleep.”

“That is two,” she said, trying to smile, “but I will try.”

“Ill, you will only be an added anxiety to Monsieur de Beaudrillart.”

“Yes. I shall not be ill. I am stronger than you can conceive. It frightens me, sometimes, to find how much I can bear.”

M. Rodoin saw her ensconced in her rooms at the hotel, and gave his address to the landlord, in case madame wanted anything. He bade her farewell with the words, “We shall triumph!” but his solitary reflections, as he drove towards his own house, were far from cheerful. “Unless some miracle happens, it is a lost case already,” he muttered, “and so Barraud thinks, and chafes. Yet there’s roguery somewhere, I’ll stake my head. If one only knew what proof Lemaire means to bring forward, or what one has to fight against! It matters nothing; we must fight somehow. After she has achieved the miracle of endowing my young baron with a backbone, what other miracles may not follow! And meanwhile—” He plunged his head in his hands and sat revolving, considering, rejecting. He hurried in the evening to Maître Barraud, and brought upon himself the imprecations of his friend, who was just issuing from his door, cigar in hand, on his way to the Opéra.

“Plague me more about this confounded Beaudrillart case, and I swear I’ll fling the whole thing up. Man, there’s a time for all things.”

“But, my dear Albert—”

The other waved his cigar.

“Not a word. If you had not unfortunately known me from my cradle, and basely traded upon that privilege, I should never have been saddled with a preposterously hopeless muddle, out of which there is nothing to be got but discomfiture.”

“When you have seen Madame Léon—”

“Madame Léon!” The young man uttered a smothered roar. “Out upon you! It is a few well-applied tears, is it, which has set you to pester your friends?”

“No, mocker! Madame Léon is a woman who acts, and does not weep. But you must see her, if only to give her confidence; for, unluckily, I pointed you out to her as she drove to the hotel to-day, and she took you for a boy.”

Maître Barraud was an excellent fellow, but his weakness was vanity.

“A boy!” he repeated, in a nettled voice. “A boy! I should like her to know—Well, what is all this about? Of course I must see the woman in order to scrape together a few materials upon which to string as many words as there are onions on the stick a Breton carries over his shoulder. And I know what I shall get out of the interview: protestations, and exclamations, and maunderings about false accusations, and an ill-used angel of a husband, and all the lot of it. Peste! a woman at the back of a case is the very devil!”

“Some day, my dear friend, Madame Barraud will have her revenge.”

“Heaven forbid! At any rate, her charming figure has not yet presented itself upon the horizon. Here is the Opéra, and now I presume I shall be left in peace. Take with you my assurance that your client will be condemned to a fine and a year’s imprisonment. He will get off with that because it was six years ago, and our juries, bless them! have a sneaking sympathy for the follies of youth.”

He waved his hand, and ran lightly up the steps, while M. Rodoin proceeded thoughtfully on his way, resisting the impulse to turn into the Rue Neuve Saint Augustin, and learn whether Mme. Léon had obeyed his injunction to dine.

She had forced herself to this, but the sleeping was a different matter. Exhausted as she was by the emotions of the previous night, she flung herself on her bed, hoping to lose the too vivid consciousness with which her mind busied itself round her husband’s cruel position. For an hour she slept. But in that time a storm of wind and rain had risen, and the rattling of the window and the lashing torrent which beat against the outer shutters aroused her with the startled fancy that the fierce gurgle of the river was again in her ears. Alas! the remembrance of where her husband was spending this night was scarcely less painful. She slipped out of bed, and fell on her knees by its side. The tears at which Maître Barraud had mocked, and which she had so long restrained, now broke from her with a violence almost suffocating. She pictured his forlorn misery, the horror of mind which would seize him afresh whenever he realised where and what he was; she imagined she even heard him cursing her for having forced this fate upon him. Other wives of whom she had read had risked everything to save their husbands from prison; she had made it her task to persuade him to yield himself deliberately to its disgrace. A profound pity moved her. She knew that she was stronger than he with his light, butterfly nature. If only she could have sinned and suffered for him! She could think of herself in a cell without shrinking, while to picture him there was agony; and her sobs and prayers redoubled at the sad figure which rose before her eyes.

The tears which exhausted relieved her, but she slept no more. She lay turning in her heart what she could do for Léon, and conscious of her own weakness. She had not yet forgotten her former discontent with M. Rodoin—although she was forced to allow that this time he had presented himself as a different man—and the sight of Maître Barraud had caused her extreme dismay. In his round, chubby face she had seen nothing to inspire confidence; she distrusted the lawyer’s assurances, and the idea of Léon’s fate having been committed to a mere boy added intolerably to her anxiety, and flung more responsibility upon her own shoulders. If, as M. Rodoin appeared to think, the trial would be brought on very shortly, there could scarcely be time to change counsel, but she promised herself to consult the lawyer as to the possibility of engaging another of more experience.

She had not the opportunity for this, however, as soon as she desired; for after waiting in extreme impatience for M. Rodoin’s appearance, and for the permission to see her husband, which she trusted he might bring, he came at about twelve o’clock, and Maître Barraud with him.

The young counsel had, it must be owned, the air of a dog dragged with extreme unwillingness by his chain, or, as it rather appeared to Nathalie, that of a school-boy in the sulks. Although she could never lose the nobility of her expression, the sorrow and sleeplessness through which she had passed had robbed the young wife of much of her beauty, and left her pale, with dark rings round her eyes, and he was obstinately determined not to behold the charm of which M. Rodoin raved. He was enraged with her, too, for her allusion to a sore subject—his boyish appearance—while as this forced itself upon her again, she found it difficult to conceal her dismay. But her first question was as to the interview.

“There is no difficulty,” M. Rodoin assured her. “You can see your husband between two and three. Maître Barraud has just come from him.”

“Oh, monsieur!” She turned to him eagerly. “You have seen him! How is he? How does he look? Has he slept?”

The young man flung a glance at his friend, which said, “Did I not tell you? See what you have brought upon me!” and answered aloud, with a certain brusqueness, “Apparently, madame, monsieur le baron is in his usual health, but my inquiries did not take that direction.”

She coloured.

“Pardon, monsieur; I should have remembered that the situation is not so novel to you as to us. Did—did your other inquiries give you the information you require?”

Deaf to the tremor in her voice, Maître Barraud shrugged his shoulders, and looked more like a naughty boy than ever.

“No, madame,” he said, “I cannot say that I have got much, and I shall be obliged if you will give me your own account of the case—as shortly as possible,” he added, in alarm.

Nathalie felt no temptation to discursiveness; there was too much pain in the recital. When she had finished, he hastily got up.

“You do not want anything more, I imagine, madame?” he asked, looking at his watch.

“One word, monsieur. If—if you find yourself in want of any assistance—I scarcely know how to express it—you will, I trust, not spare expense—we should wish my husband to have the best, the very best advice and experience—”

“Oh, thanks, madame,” returned M. Barraud carelessly. “I shall have the usual juniors; M. Rodoin will take care of that. You are coming?” he added, severely to his friend.

“I will return, madame, and drive you to the Palais de Justice,” said the lawyer, bowing respectfully over her hand. The next moment she was alone.

“His juniors!” The words sounded like a mockery, and Nathalie gazed despairingly at the door out of which this mannerless boy had betaken himself. The idea that Léon’s interests should be in his hands was so terrible that when M. Rodoin appeared, punctual to his hour, she met him with reproaches.

“But, madame, madame,” cried the amazed lawyer, “you are under some extraordinary misapprehension! Maître Barraud’s reputation is world-wide; France has no greater pleader; we are only too fortunate—owing, I may say, to my friendship with his father—to have secured him!”

“At his age!” exclaimed Nathalie, incredulously. “Monsieur, it is impossible! And he does not give one the idea of a man of power.”

“Oh, if that is all, I assure you, madame, that you may console yourself. He has his eccentricities, and one is a dislike to being taken seriously in private. As to his youth, certainly he is young for his position, though older than he looks. But that is only a proof of his amazing talents. No, no, madame, you may be perfectly at your ease as to Maître Barraud. If any one can right this unhappy business, he is the man. Shall we start?”

The poor wife scarcely knew how the interval between leaving the hotel and arriving at the Palais de Justice was passed. She had a confused impression of streets, of walls, of eyes which she felt to be full of curiosity, however much reason assured her that there was nothing in the carriage to attract attention. Like a sleep-walker, she got out of the carriage when it stopped, and followed M. Rodoin along passages and up stairs which to him were long familiar. She noticed nothing; when he stopped, she stopped; when he went on, she followed. Details were lost upon her, and the first thing which seemed to bring back her benumbed senses was the finding herself in her husband’s arms.

That roused her, and she had a momentary rapture before she flung back her head to let her eyes devour his face. It was white, and, in spite of its roundness, haggard, but not more so than when she left him. She had lost the proportion of the past days, and her feeling was that they had been parted for weeks.

“How do they treat you?” she whispered, glancing round. “Not so badly.” He tried to speak cheerfully. “Beyond having to put up with a lot of questions intended to make me own myself a rascal, I have not much to complain of. Have you written home!”

“This morning.”

“And so have I; but with the conviction that one’s letters are read, it is not possible to be very effusive.”

“And, oh, Léon, Maître Barraud!”

“What of him?” He spoke quickly, and M. Rodoin, who had kept discreetly in the background, advanced, smiling.

“Madame would be more happy if she could have your assurances, monsieur le baron, that he is really an eminent man. His appearance affronts her.”

“He is so ridiculously young!” persisted Nathalie.

“Oh, he is all right. But I do not think he is hopeful. Who can be?” muttered Léon, running his hands through his hair, and losing his momentary elation. “Now that you have made me give myself away, what is there to say?”

Her only answer was a mute caress, and a cautious cough from M. Rodoin was intended to point out that in prisons, at any rate, walls may have ears. The lawyer remarked, in an undertone:

“If any one can turn this Lemaire inside out and destroy his credit, it will be Albert Barraud.”

“Oh, the scoundrel will have got his story pat.”

“We shall demand to examine Monsieur de Cadanet’s banking accounts,” went on the other. “If there is an entry of two hundred thousand francs about the date of your repayment, it will be to a certain extent a corroboration. Had the count absolutely no confidential servant in the house?”

Léon shook his head. “To my knowledge, none.”

“Madame Lemaire was married at the time?”

Nathalie raised her head from her husband’s shoulder.

“Has he a wife?”

“Poor woman, yes. At any rate, monsieur le baron has drawn the teeth of their principal witness, the concierge who was carrying the letters. If it were only as a matter of expediency,” he went on, addressing Léon, “your admission has, beyond a doubt, weakened their case. Somehow or other they had proof up to a certain point; Maître Barraud was convinced of it. Beyond this they can have none, and the rope lies slack in their hands.”

“Ah, yes, listen, my friend!” cried Nathalie, joyfully.

Léon had made an effort, strange to his nature, to control himself and spare his wife in their interview. He had been inexpressibly touched by the swiftness of rescue she had brought to his aid on that terrible night. He knew that at this moment she was wearing gloves, lest his eyes should be offended by the cuts and scratches on her hands. He had strung himself heroically to the point of concealing his misery, and of letting her suppose that the worst was past. But, as is often the case, he resented a cheerful view on her part, and could not allow her, even for an instant, to lighten the weight of the situation. In a moment he was plunged into black gloom, and assuring her that whatever happened he could never survive the humiliation of the trial. M. Rodoin discreetly withdrew to the farthest limits, and stood regarding a black spot on the wall. He turned a deaf ear as well as a back, but he could not help hearing a confused murmur of pleading words, sighs, groans, and muttered exclamations of misery. The lawyer fidgeted, looked at his watch, and took a sudden resolution. He turned round sharply.

“Monsieur le baron,” he said, brusquely, “permit me to point out that if you kill madame before the trial, there, will be one good head the less on our side. That is all.”

“Monsieur!” cried Nathalie, reproachfully.

“Yes, yes, madame, I am perfectly aware that most women’s hearts are as tough as leather, and yours may be among them, but there are exceptions. It will be awkward if yours should turn out an exception. Monsieur Léon would do well to recollect this, and, also, that the complication is one of his own making.”

The young man straightened himself.

“You hit—hard, Monsieur Rodoin,” he said, breathing heavily.

“Because I never in my life esteemed you half so much as I do now, monsieur,” said the lawyer, in a low voice, “or pitied you less. You committed a wrong act, so have many of us. You have the courage to expiate it, as many of us have not. You will gain the respect of honest men, and you have your wife’s devoted love. Allons, monsieur, whatever happens, you are not so much to be pitied. The time is up; here comes the warder. Madame will never forgive me for what I have had the presumption to say; nevertheless, she and I will go and cogitate over the best line of defence.”

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