Not far from the Palais Royal, in the Rue St. Honore, is the sign of “La Bonne Foi,” a small establishment, half cafe and half shop, extensively patronized by the people of the neighborhood.
It was in the smoking-room of this modest cafe that Prosper, the day after his release, awaited M. Verduret, who had promised to meet him at four o’clock.
The clock struck four; M. Verduret, who was punctuality itself, appeared. He was more red-faced and self-satisfied, if possible, than the day before.
As soon as the servant had left the room to obey his orders, he said to Prosper:
“Well, are our commissions executed?”
“Yes, monsieur.”
“Have you seen the costumer?”
“I gave him your letter, and everything you ordered will be sent to the Archangel to-morrow.”
“Very good; you have not lost time, neither have I. I have good news for you.”
The “Bonne Foi” is almost deserted at four o’clock. The hour for coffee is passed, and the hour for absinthe has not yet come. M. Verduret and Prosper could talk at their ease without fear of being overheard by gossiping neighbors.
M. Verduret drew forth his memorandum-book, the precious diary which, like the enchanted book in the fairy-tale, had an answer for every question.
“While awaiting our emissaries whom I appointed to meet here, let us devote a little time to M. de Lagors.”
At this name Prosper did not protest, as he had done the night previous. Like those imperceptible insects which, having once penetrated the root of a tree, devour it in a single night, suspicion, when it invades our mind, soon develops itself, and destroys our firmest beliefs.
The visit of Lagors, and Gypsy’s torn letter, had filled Prosper with suspicions which had grown stronger and more settled as time passed.
“Do you know, my dear friend,” said M. Verduret, “what part of France this devoted friend of yours comes from?”
“He was born at St. Remy, which is also Mme. Fauvel’s native town.”
“Are you certain of that?”
“Oh, perfectly so, monsieur! He has not only often told me so, but I have heard him tell M. Fauvel; and he would talk to Mme. Fauvel by the hour about his mother, who was cousin to Mme. Fauvel, and dearly beloved by her.”
“Then you think there is no possible mistake or falsehood about this part of his story?”
“None in the least, monsieur.”
“Well, things are assuming a queer look.”
And he began to whistle between his teeth; which, with M. Verduret, was a sign of intense inward satisfaction.
“What seems so, monsieur?” inquired Prosper.
“What has just happened; what I have been tracing. Parbleu!” he exclaimed, imitating the manner of a showman at a fair, “here is a lovely town, called St. Remy, six thousand inhabitants; charming boulevards on the site of the old fortifications; handsome hotel; numerous fountains; large charcoal market, silk factories, famous hospital, and so on.”
Prosper was on thorns.
“Please be so good, monsieur, as to explain what you——”
“It also contains,” continued M. Verduret, “a Roman triumphal arch, which is of unparalleled beauty, and a Greek mausoleum; but no Lagors. St. Remy is the native town of Nostradamus, but not of your friend.”
“Yet I have proofs.”
“Naturally. But proofs can be fabricated; relatives can be improvised. Your evidence is open to suspicion. My proofs are undeniable, perfectly authenticated. While you were pining in prison, I was preparing my batteries and collecting munition to open fire. I wrote to St. Remy, and received answers to my questions.”
“Will you let me know what they were?”
“Have patience,” said M. Verduret as he turned over the leaves of his memoranda. “Ah, here is number one. Bow respectfully to it, ‘tis official.”
He then read:
“‘LAGORS.—Very old family, originally from Maillane, settled at St. Remy about a century ago.’”
“I told you so,” cried Prosper.
“Pray allow me to finish,” said M. Verduret.
“‘The last of the Lagors (Jules-Rene-Henri) bearing without warrant the title of count, married in 1829 Mlle. Rosalie-Clarisse Fontanet, of Tarascon; died December 1848, leaving no male heir, but left two daughters. The registers make no mention of any person in the district bearing the name of Lagors.’
“Now what do you think of this information?” queried the fat man with a triumphant smile.
Prosper looked amazed.
“But why did M. Fauvel treat Raoul as his nephew?”
“Ah, you mean as his wife’s nephew! Let us examine note number two: it is not official, but it throws a valuable light upon the twenty thousand livres income of your friend.”
“‘Jules-Rene-Henride Lagors, last of his name, died at St. Remy on the 29th of December, 1848, in a state of great poverty. He at one time was possessed of a moderate fortune, but invested it in a silk-worm nursery, and lost it all.
“‘He had no son, but left two daughters, one of whom is a teacher at Aix, and the other married a retail merchant at Orgon. His widow, who lives at Montagnette, is supported entirely by one of her relatives, the wife of a rich banker in Paris. No person of the name of Lagors lives in the district of Arles.’
“That is all,” said M. Verduret; “don’t you think it enough?”
“Really, monsieur, I don’t know whether I am awake or dreaming.”
“You will be awake after a while. Now I wish to remark one thing. Some people may assert that the widow Lagors had a child born after her husband’s death. This objection has been destroyed by the age of your friend. Raoul is twenty-four, and M. de Lagors has not been dead twenty years.”
“But,” said Prosper thoughtfully, “who can Raoul be?”
“I don’t know. The fact is, I am more perplexed to find out who he is, than to know whom he is not. There is one man who could give us all the information we seek, but he will take good care to keep his mouth shut.”
“You mean M. de Clameran?”
“Him, and no one else.”
“I have always felt the most inexplicable aversion toward him. Ah, if we could only get his account in addition to what you already have!”
“I have been furnished with a few notes concerning the Clameran family by your father, who knew them well; they are brief, but I expect more.”
“What did my father tell you?”
“Nothing favorable, you may be sure. I will read you the synopsis of this information:
“‘Louis de Clameran was born at the Chateau de Clameran, near Tarascon. He had an elder brother named Gaston, who, in consequence of an affray in which he had the misfortune to kill one man and badly wound another, was compelled to fly the country in 1842. Gaston was an honest, noble youth, universally beloved. Louis, on the contrary, was a wicked, despicable fellow, detested by all who knew him.
“‘Upon the death of his father, Louis came to Paris, and in less than two years had squandered not only his own patrimony, but also the share of his exiled brother.
“‘Ruined and harassed by debt, Louis entered the army, but behaved so disgracefully that he was dismissed.
“‘After leaving the army we lose sight of him; all we can discover is, that he went to England, and thence to a German gambling resort, where he became notorious for his scandalous conduct.
“‘In 1865 we find him again at Paris. He was in great poverty, and his associates were among the most depraved classes.
“‘But he suddenly heard of the return of his brother Gaston to Paris. Gaston had made a fortune in Mexico; but being still a young man, and accustomed to a very active life, he purchased, near Orloron, an iron-mill, intending to spend the remainder of his life in working at it. Six months ago he died in the arms of his brother Louis. His death provided our De Clameran an immense fortune, and the title of marquis.’”
“Then,” said Prosper, “from all this I judge that M. de Clameran was very poor when I met him for the first time at M. Fauvel’s?”
“Evidently.”
“And about that time Lagors arrived from the country?”
“Precisely.”
“And about a month after his appearance Madeleine suddenly banished me?”
“Well,” exclaimed M. Verduret, “I am glad you are beginning to understand the state of affairs.”
He was interrupted by the entrance of a stranger.
The new-comer was a dandified-looking coachman, with elegant black whiskers, shining boots with fancy tops; buff breeches, and a yellow waistcoat with red and black stripes.
After cautiously looking around the room, he walked straight up to the table where M. Verduret sat.
“What is the news, Master Joseph Dubois?” said the stout man eagerly.
“Ah, patron, don’t speak of it!” answered the servant: “things are getting warm.”
Prosper concentrated all his attention upon this superb domestic. He thought he recognized his face. He had certainly somewhere seen that retreating forehead and those little restless black eyes, but where and when he could not remember.
Meanwhile, Master Joseph had taken a seat at a table adjoining the one occupied by M. Verduret and Prosper; and, having called for some absinthe, was preparing it by holding the water aloft and slowly dropping it in the glass.
“Speak!” said M. Verduret.
“In the first place, patron, I must say that the position of valet and coachman to M. de Clameran is not a bed of roses.”
“Go on: come to the point. You can complain to-morrow.”
“Very good. Yesterday my master walked out at two o’clock. I, of course, followed him. Do you know where he went? The thing was as good as a farce. He went to the Archangel to keep the appointment made by ‘Nina Gypsy.’”
“Well, make haste. They told him she was gone. Then?”
“Then? Ah! he was not at all pleased, I can tell you. He hurried back to the hotel where the other, M. de Lagors, awaited him. And, upon my soul, I have never heard so much swearing in my life! M. Raoul asked him what had happened to put him in such a bad humor. ‘Nothing,’ replied my master, ‘except that little devil has run off, and no one knows where she is; she has slipped through our fingers.’ Then they both appeared to be vexed and uneasy. Lagors asked if she knew anything serious. ‘She knows nothing but what I told you,’ replied Clameran; ‘but this nothing, falling in the ear of a man with any suspicions, will be more than enough to work on.’”
M. Verduret smiled like a man who had his reasons for appreciating at their just value De Clameran’s fears.
“Well, your master is not without sense, after all; don’t you think he showed it by saying that?”
“Yes, patron. Then Lagors exclaimed, ‘If it is as serious as that, we must get rid of this little serpent!’ But my master shrugged his shoulders, and laughing loudly said, ‘You talk like an idiot; when one is annoyed by a woman of this sort, one must take measures to get rid of her administratively.’ This idea seemed to amuse them both very much.”
“I can understand their being entertained by it,” said M. Verduret; “it is an excellent idea; but the misfortune is, it is too late to carry it out. The nothing which made Clameran uneasy has already fallen into a knowing ear.”
With breathless curiosity, Prosper listened to this report, every word of which seemed to throw light upon past events. Now, he thought, he understood the fragment of Gypsy’s letter. He saw that this Raoul, in whom he had confided so deeply, was nothing more than a scoundrel. A thousand little circumstances, unnoticed at the time, now recurred to his mind, and made him wonder how he could have been so blind so long.
Master Joseph Dubois continued his report:
“Yesterday, after dinner, my master decked himself out like a bridegroom. I shaved him, curled his hair, and perfumed him with special care, after which I drove him to the Rue de Provence to call on Mme. Fauvel.”
“What!” exclaimed Prosper, “after the insulting language he used the day of the robbery, did he dare to visit the house?”
“Yes, monsieur, he not only dared this, but he also stayed there until midnight, to my great discomfort; for I got as wet as a rat, waiting for him.”
“How did he look when he came out?” asked M. Verduret.
“Well, he certainly looked less pleased then when he went in. After putting away my carriage, and rubbing down my horses, I went to see if he wanted anything; I found the door locked, and he swore at me like a trooper, through the key-hole.”
And, to assist the digestion of this insult, Master Joseph here gulped down a glass of absinthe.
“Is that all?” questioned M. Verduret.
“All that occurred yesterday, patron; but this morning my master rose late, still in a horrible bad humor. At noon Raoul arrived, also in a rage. They at once began to dispute, and such a row! why, the most abandoned housebreakers and pickpockets would have blushed to hear such Billingsgate. At one time my master seized the other by the throat and shook him like a reed. But Raoul was too quick for him; he saved himself from strangulation by drawing out a sharp-pointed knife, the sight of which made my master drop him in a hurry, I can tell you.”
“But what did they say?”
“Ah, there is the rub, patron,” said Joseph in a piteous tone; “the scamps spoke English, so I could not understand them. But I am sure they were disputing about money.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I learned at the Exposition that the word ‘argent’ means money in every language in Europe; and this word they constantly used in their conversation.”
M. Verduret sat with knit brows, talking in an undertone to himself; and Prosper, who was watching him, wondered if he was trying to understand and construct the dispute by mere force of reflection.
“When they had done fighting,” continued Joseph, “the rascals began to talk in French again; but they only spoke of a fancy ball which is to be given by some banker. When Raoul was leaving, my master said, ‘Since this thing is inevitable, and it must take place to-day, you had better remain at home, at Vesinet, this evening.’ Raoul replied, ‘Of course.’”
Night was approaching, and the smoking-room was gradually filling with men who called for absinthe or bitters, and youths who perched themselves up on high stools, and smoked their pipes.
“It is time to go,” said M. Verduret; “your master will want you, Joseph; besides, here is someone come for me. I will see you to-morrow.”
The new-comer was no other than Cavaillon, more troubled and frightened than ever. He looked uneasily around the room, as if he expected the whole police force to appear, and carry him off to prison.
He did not sit down at M. Verduret’s table, but stealthily gave his hand to Prosper, and, after assuring himself that no one was observing them, handed M. Verduret a package, saying:
“She found this in a cupboard.”
It was a handsomely bound prayer-book. M. Verduret rapidly turned over the leaves, and soon found the pages from which the words pasted on Prosper’s letter had been cut.
“I had moral proofs,” he said, handing the book to Prosper, “but here is material proof sufficient in itself to save you.”
When Prosper looked at the book he turned pale as a ghost. He recognized this prayer-book instantly. He had given it to Madeleine in exchange for the medal.
He opened it, and on the fly-leaf Madeleine had written, “Souvenir of Notre Dame de Fourvieres, 17 January, 1866.”
“This book belongs to Madeleine,” he cried.
M. Verduret did not reply, but walked toward a young man dressed like a brewer, who had just entered the room.
He glanced at the note which this person handed to him, and hastened back to the table, and said, in an agitated tone:
“I think we have got them now!”
Throwing a five-franc piece on the table, and without saying a word to Cavaillon, he seized Prosper’s arm, and hurried from the room.
“What a fatality!” he said, as he hastened along the street: “we may miss them. We shall certainly reach the St. Lazare station too late for the St. Germain train.”
“For Heaven’s sake, where are you going?” asked Prosper.
“Never mind, we can talk after we start. Hurry!”
Reaching Palais Royal Place, M. Verduret stopped before one of the hacks belonging to the railway station, and examined the horses at a glance.
“How much for driving us to Vesinet?” he asked of the driver.
“I don’t know the road very well that way.”
The name of Vesinet was enough for Prosper.
“Well,” said the driver, “at this time of night, in such dreadful weather, it ought to be—twenty-five francs.”
“And how much more for driving very rapidly?”
“Bless my soul! Why, monsieur, I leave that to your generosity; but if you put it at thirty-five francs—”
“You shall have a hundred,” interrupted M. Verduret, “if you overtake a carriage which has half an hour’s start of us.”
“Tonnerre de Brest!” cried the delighted driver; “jump in quick: we are losing time!”
And, whipping up his lean horses, he galloped them down the Rue de Valois at lightning speed.
Leaving the little station of Vesinet, we come upon two roads. One, to the left, macadamized and kept in perfect repair, leads to the village, of which there are glimpses here and there through the trees. The other, newly laid out, and just covered with gravel, leads through the woods.
Along the latter, which before the lapse of five years will be a busy street, are built a few houses, hideous in design, and at some distance apart; rural summer retreats of city merchants, but unoccupied during the winter.
It was at the junction of these two roads that Prosper stopped the hack.
The driver had gained his hundred francs. The horses were completely worn out, but they had accomplished all that was expected of them; M. Verduret could distinguish the lamps of a hack similar to the one he occupied, about fifty yards ahead of him.
M. Verduret jumped out, and, handing the driver a bank-note, said:
“Here is what I promised you. Go to the first tavern you find on the right-hand side of the road as you enter the village. If we do not meet you there in an hour, you are at liberty to return to Paris.”
The driver was overwhelming in his thanks; but neither Prosper nor his friend heard them. They had already started up the new road.
The weather, which had been inclement when they set out, was now fearful. The rain fell in torrents, and a furious wind howled dismally through the dense woods.
The intense darkness was rendered more dreary by the occasional glimmer of the lamps at the distant station, which seemed about to be extinguished by every new gust of wind.
M. Verduret and Prosper had been running along the muddy road for about five minutes, when suddenly the latter stopped and said:
“This is Raoul’s house.”
Before the gate of an isolated house stood the hack which M. Verduret had followed. Reclining on his seat, wrapped in a thick cloak, was the driver, who, in spite of the pouring rain, was already asleep, evidently waiting for the person whom he had brought to this house a few minutes ago.
M. Verduret pulled his cloak, and said, in a low voice:
“Wake up, my good man.”
The driver started, and, mechanically gathering his reins, yawned out:
“I am ready: come on!”
But when, by the light of the carriage-lamps, he saw two men in this lonely spot, he imagined that they wanted his purse, and perhaps his life.
“I am engaged!” he cried out, as he cracked his whip in the air; “I am waiting here for someone.”
“I know that, you fool,” replied M. Verduret, “and only wish to ask you a question, which you can gain five francs by answering. Did you not bring a middle-aged lady here?”
This question, this promise of five francs, instead of reassuring the coachman, increased his alarm.
“I have already told you I am waiting for someone,” he said, “and, if you don’t go away and leave me alone, I will call for help.”
M. Verduret drew back quickly.
“Come away,” he whispered to Prosper, “the cur will do as he says; and, alarm once given, farewell to our projects. We must find some other entrance than by this gate.”
They then went along the wall surrounding the garden, in search of a place where it was possible to climb up.
This was difficult to discover, the wall being twelve feet high, and the night very dark. Fortunately, M. Verduret was very agile; and, having decided upon the spot to be scaled, he drew back a few feet, and making a sudden spring, seized one of the projecting stones above him, and, drawing himself up by aid of his hands and feet, soon found himself on top of the wall.
It was now Prosper’s turn to climb up; but, though much younger than his companion, he had not his agility and strength, and would never have succeeded if M. Verduret had not pulled him up, and then helped him down on the other side.
Once in the garden, M. Verduret looked about him to study the situation.
The house occupied by M. de Lagors was built in the middle of an immense garden. It was narrow, two stories high, and with garrets.
Only one window, in the second story, was lighted.
“As you have often been here,” said M. Verduret, “you must know all about the arrangement of the house: what room is that where we see the light?”
“That is Raoul’s bed-chamber.”
“Very good. What rooms are on the first floor?”
“The kitchen, pantry, billiard-room, and dining-room.”
“And on the floor above?”
“Two drawing-rooms separated by folding doors, and a library.”
“Where do the servants sleep?”
“Raoul has none at present. He is waited on by a man and his wife, who live at Vesinet; they come in the morning, and leave after dinner.”
M. Verduret rubbed his hands gleefully.
“That suits our plans exactly,” he said; “there is nothing to prevent our hearing what Raoul has to say to this person who has come from Paris at ten o’clock at night, to see him. Let us go in.”
Prosper seemed averse to this, and said:
“It is a serious thing for us to do, monsieur.”
“Bless my soul! what else did we come here for? Did you think it was a pleasure-trip, merely to enjoy this lovely weather?” he said in a bantering tone.
“But we might be discovered.”
“Suppose we are? If the least noise betrays our presence, you have only to advance boldly as a friend come to visit a friend, and, finding the door open walked in.”
But unfortunately the heavy oak door was locked. M. Verduret shook it in vain.
“How foolish!” he said with vexation, “I ought to have brought my instruments with me. A common lock which could be opened with a nail, and I have not even a piece of wire!”
Thinking it useless to attempt the door, he tried successively every window on the ground-floor. Alas! each blind was securely fastened on the inside.
M. Verduret was provoked. He prowled around the house like a fox around a hen-coop, seeking an entrance, but finding none. Despairingly he came back to the spot in front of the house, whence he had the best view of the lighted window.
“If I could only look in,” he cried. “Just to think that in there,” and he pointed to the window, “is the solution of the mystery; and we are cut off from it by thirty or forty feet of cursed blank wall!”
Prosper was more surprised than ever at his companion’s strange behavior. He seemed perfectly at home in this garden; he ran about without any precaution; so that one would have supposed him accustomed to such expeditions, especially when he spoke of picking the lock of an occupied house, as if he were talking of opening a snuff-box. He was utterly indifferent to the rain and sleet driven in his face by the gusts of wind as he splashed about in the mud trying to find some way of entrance.
“I must get a peep into that window,” he said, “and I will, cost what it may!”
Prosper seemed to suddenly remember something.
“There is a ladder here,” he cried.
“Why did you not tell me that before? Where is it?”
“At the end of the garden, under the trees.”
They ran to the spot, and in a few minutes had the ladder standing against the wall.
But to their chagrin they found the ladder six feet too short. Six long feet of wall between the top of the ladder and the lighted window was a very discouraging sight to Prosper; he exclaimed:
“We cannot reach it.”
“Wecanreach it,” cried M. Verduret triumphantly.
And he quickly placed himself a yard off from the house, and, seizing the ladder, cautiously raised it and rested the bottom round on his shoulders, at the same time holding the two uprights firmly and steadily with his hands. The obstacle was overcome.
“Now mount,” he said to his companion.
Prosper did not hesitate. The enthusiasm of difficulties so skilfully conquered, and the hope of triumph, gave him a strength and agility which he had never imagined he possessed. He made a sudden spring, and, seizing the lower rounds, quickly climbed up the ladder, which swayed and trembled beneath his weight.
But he had scarcely looked in the lighted window when he uttered a cry which was drowned in the roaring tempest, and dropped like a log down on the wet grass, exclaiming:
“The villain! the villain!”
With wonderful promptness and vigor M. Verduret laid the ladder on the ground, and ran toward Prosper, fearing that he was dead or dangerously injured.
“What did you see? Are you hurt?” he whispered.
But Prosper had already risen. Although he had had a violent fall, he was unhurt; he was in a state when mind governs matter so absolutely that the body is insensible to pain.
“I saw,” he answered in a hoarse voice, “I saw Madeleine—do you understand, Madeleine—in that room, alone with Raoul!”
M. Verduret was confounded. Was it possible that he, the infallible expert, had been mistaken in his deductions?
He well knew that M. de Lagors’s visitor was a woman; but his own conjectures, and the note which Mme. Gypsy had sent to him at the tavern, had fully assured him that this woman was Mme. Fauvel.
“You must be mistaken,” he said to Prosper.
“No, monsieur, no. Never could I mistake another for Madeleine. Ah! you who heard what she said to me yesterday, answer me: was I to expect such infamous treason as this? You said to me then, ‘She loves you, she loves you!’ Now do you think she loves me? speak!”
M. Verduret did not answer. He had first been stupefied by his mistake, and was now racking his brain to discover the cause of it, which was soon discerned by his penetrating mind.
“This is the secret discovered by Nina,” continued Prosper. “Madeleine, this pure and noble Madeleine, whom I believed to be as immaculate as an angel, is in love with this thief, who has even stolen the name he bears; and I, trusting fool that I was, made this scoundrel my best friend. I confided to him all my hopes and fears; and he was her lover! Of course they amused themselves by ridiculing my silly devotion and blind confidence!”
He stopped, overcome by his violent emotions. Wounded vanity is the worst of miseries. The certainty of having been so shamefully deceived and betrayed made Prosper almost insane with rage.
“This is the last humiliation I shall submit to,” he fiercely cried. “It shall not be said that I was coward enough to stand by and let an insult like this go unpunished.”
He started toward the house; but M. Verduret seized his arm and said:
“What are you going to do?”
“Have my revenge! I will break down the door; what do I care for the noise and scandal, now that I have nothing to lose? I shall not attempt to creep into the house like a thief, but as a master, as one who has a right to enter; as a man who, having received an insult which can only be washed out with blood, comes to demand satisfaction.”
“You will do nothing of the sort, Prosper.”
“Who will prevent me?”
“I will.”
“You? do not hope that you will be able to deter me. I will appear before them, put them to the blush, kill them both, then put an end to my own wretched existence. That is what I intend to do, and nothing shall stop me!”
If M. Verduret had not held Prosper with a vice-like grip, he would have escaped, and carried out his threat.
“If you make any noise, Prosper, or raise an alarm, all your hopes are ruined.”
“I have no hopes now.”
“Raoul, put on his guard, will escape us, and you will remain dishonored forever.”
“What difference is it to me?”
“It makes a great difference to me. I have sworn to prove your innocence. A man of your age can easily find a wife, but can never restore lustre to a tarnished name. Let nothing interfere with the establishing of your innocence.”
Genuine passion is uninfluenced by surrounding circumstances. M. Verduret and Prosper stood foot-deep in mud, wet to the skin, the rain pouring down on their heads, and yet seemed in no hurry to end their dispute.
“I will be avenged,” repeated Prosper with the persistency of a fixed idea, “I will avenge myself.”
“Well, avenge yourself like a man, and not like a child!” said M. Verduret angrily.
“Monsieur!”
“Yes, I repeat it, like a child. What will you do after you get into the house? Have you any arms? No. You rush upon Raoul, and a struggle ensues; while you two are fighting, Madeleine jumps in her carriage, and drives off. What then? Which is the stronger, you or Raoul?”
Overcome by the sense of his powerlessness, Prosper was silent.
“And arms would be of no use,” continued M. Verduret: “it is fortunate you have none with you, for it would be very foolish to shoot a man whom you can send to the galleys.”
“What must I do?”
“Wait. Vengeance is a delicious fruit, that must ripen in order that we may fully enjoy it.”
Prosper was unsettled in his resolution; M. Verduret seeing this brought forth his last and strongest argument.
“How do we know,” he said, “that Mlle. Madeleine is here on her own account? Did we not come to the conclusion that she was sacrificing herself for the benefit of someone else? That superior will which compelled her to banish you may have constrained this step to-night.”
That which coincides with our secret wishes is always eagerly welcomed. This supposition, apparently improbable, struck Prosper as possibly true.
“That might be the case,” he murmured, “who knows?”
“I would soon know,” said M. Verduret, “if I could see them together in that room.”
“Will you promise me, monsieur, to tell me the exact truth, all that you see and hear, no matter how painful it may be for me?”
“I swear it, upon my word of honor.”
Then, with a strength of which a few minutes before he would not have believed himself possessed, Prosper raised the ladder, placed the last round on his shoulders, and said to M. Verduret:
“Mount!”
M. Verduret rapidly ascended the ladder without even shaking it, and had his head on a level with the window.
Prosper had seen but too well. There was Madeleine at this hour of the night, alone with Raoul de Lagors in his room!
M. Verduret observed that she still wore her shawl and bonnet.
She was standing in the middle of the room, talking with great animation. Her look and gestures betrayed indignant scorn. There was an expression of ill-disguised loathing upon her beautiful face.
Raoul was seated by the fire, stirring up the coals with a pair of tongs. Every now and then, he would shrug his shoulders, like a man resigned to everything he heard, and had no answer, except, “I cannot help it. I can do nothing for you.”
M. Verdure would willingly have given the diamond ring on his finger to be able to hear what was said; but the roaring wind completely drowned their voices.
“They are evidently quarrelling,” he thought; “but it is not a lovers’ quarrel.”
Madeleine continued talking; and it was by closely watching the face of Lagors, clearly revealed by the lamp on the mantel, that M. Verduret hoped to discover the meaning of the scene before him.
At one moment Lagors would start and tremble in spite of his apparent indifference; the next, he would strike at the fire with the tongs, as if giving vent to his rage at some reproach uttered by Madeleine.
Finally Madeleine changed her threats into entreaties, and, clasping her hands, almost fell at his knees.
He turned away his head, and refused to answer save in monosyllables.
Several times she turned to leave the room, but each time returned, as if asking a favor, and unable to make up her mind to leave the house till she had obtained it.
At last she seemed to have uttered something decisive; for Raoul quickly rose and opened a desk near the fireplace, from which he took a bundle of papers, and handed them to her.
“Well,” thought M. Verduret, “this looks bad. Can it be a compromising correspondence which the fair one wants to secure?”
Madeleine took the papers, but was apparently still dissatisfied. She again entreated him to give her something else. Raoul refused; and then she threw the papers on the table.
The papers seemed to puzzle M. Verduret very much, as he gazed at them through the window.
“I am not blind,” he said, “and I certainly am not mistaken; those papers, red, green, and yellow, are pawnbroker’s tickets!”
Madeleine turned over the papers as if looking for some particular ones. She selected three, which she put in her pocket, disdainfully pushing the others aside.
She was evidently preparing to take her departure, for she said a few words to Raoul, who took up the lamp as if to escort her downstairs.
There was nothing more for M. Verduret to see. He carefully descended the ladder, muttering to himself. “Pawnbroker’s tickets! What infamous mystery lies at the bottom of all this?”
The first thing he did was to remove the ladder.
Raoul might take it into his head to look around the garden, when he came to the door with Madeleine, and if he did so the ladder could scarcely fail to attract his attention.
M. Verduret and Prosper hastily laid it on the ground, regardless of the shrubs and vines they destroyed in doing so, and then concealed themselves among the trees, whence they could watch at once the front door and the outer gate.
Madeleine and Raoul appeared in the doorway. Raoul set the lamp on the bottom step, and offered his hand to the girl; but she refused it with haughty contempt, which somewhat soothed Prosper’s lacerated heart.
This scornful behavior did not, however, seem to surprise or hurt Raoul. He simply answered by an ironical gesture which implied, “As you please!”
He followed her to the gate, which he opened and closed after her; then he hurried back to the house, while Madeleine’s carriage drove rapidly away.
“Now, monsieur,” said Prosper, “you must tell me what you saw. You promised me the truth no matter how bitter it might be. Speak; I can bear it, be it what it may!”
“You will only have joy to bear, my friend. Within a month you will bitterly regret your suspicions of to-night. You will blush to think that you ever imagined Mlle. Madeleine to be intimate with a man like Lagors.”
“But, monsieur, appearances——”
“It is precisely against appearances that we must be on our guard. Always distrust them. A suspicion, false or just, is always based on something. But we must not stay here forever; and, as Raoul has fastened the gate, we shall have to climb back again.”
“But there is the ladder.”
“Let it stay where it is; as we cannot efface our footprints, he will think thieves have been trying to get into the house.”
They scaled the wall, and had not walked fifty steps when they heard the noise of a gate being unlocked. The stood aside and waited; a man soon passed on his way to the station.
“That is Raoul,” said M. Verduret, “and Joseph will report to us that he has gone to tell Clameran what has just taken place. If they are only kind enough to speak French!”
He walked along quietly for some time, trying to connect the broken chain of his deductions.
“How in the deuce,” he abruptly asked, “did this Lagors, who is devoted to gay society, come to choose a lonely country house to live in?”
“I suppose it was because M. Fauvel’s villa is only fifteen minutes’ ride from here, on the Seine.”
“That accounts for his staying here in the summer; but in winter?”
“Oh, in winter he has a room at the Hotel du Louvre, and all the year round keeps an apartment in Paris.”
This did not enlighten M. Verduret much; he hurried his pace.
“I hope our driver has not gone. We cannot take the train which is about to start, because Raoul would see us at the station.”
Although it was more than an hour since M. Verduret and Prosper left the hack at the branch road, they found it waiting for them in front of the tavern.
The driver could not resist the desire to change his five-franc piece; he had ordered dinner, and, finding his wine very good, was calling for more, when he looked up and saw his employers.
“Well, you are in a strange state!” he exclaimed.
Prosper replied that they had gone to see a friend, and, losing their way, had fallen into a pit; as if there were pits in Vesinet forest.
“Ah, that is the way you got covered with mud, is it?” exclaimed the driver, who, though apparently contented with this explanation, strongly suspected that his two customers had been engaged in some nefarious transaction.
This opinion seemed to be entertained by everyone present, for they looked at Prosper’s muddy clothes and then at each other in a knowing way.
But M. Verduret stopped all comment by saying:
“Come on.”
“All right, monsieur: get in while I settle my bill; I will be there in a minute.”
The drive back was silent and seemed interminably long. Prosper at first tried to draw his strange companion into conversation, but, as he received nothing but monosyllables in reply, held his peace for the rest of the journey. He was again beginning to feel irritated at the absolute empire exercised over him by this man.
Physical discomfort was added to his other troubles. He was stiff and numb; every bone in him ached with the cold.
Although mental endurance may be unlimited, bodily strength must in the end give way. A violent effort is always followed by reaction.
Lying back in a corner of the carriage, with his feet upon the front seat, M. Verduret seemed to be enjoying a nap; yet he was never more wide awake.
He was in a perplexed state of mind. This expedition, which, he had been confident, would resolve all his doubts, had only added mystery to mystery. His chain of evidence, which he thought so strongly linked, was completely broken.
For him the facts remained the same, but circumstances had changed. He could not imagine what common motive, what moral or material complicity, what influences, could have existed to make the four actors in his drama, Mme. Fauvel, Madeleine, Raoul, and Clameran, seem to have the same object in view.
He was seeking in his fertile mind, that encyclopaedia of craft and subtlety, for some combination which would throw light on the problem before him.
The midnight bells were ringing when they reached the Archangel, and for the first time M. Verduret remembered that he had not dined.
Fortunately Mme. Alexandre was still up, and in the twinkling of an eye had improvised a tempting supper. It was more than attention, more than respect, that she showed her guest. Prosper observed that she gazed admiringly at M. Verduret all the while he was eating his supper.
“You will not see me to-morrow,” said M. Verduret to Prosper, when he had risen to leave the room; “but I will be here about this time to-morrow night. Perhaps I shall discover what I am seeking at MM. Jandidier’s ball.”
Prosper was dumb with astonishment. What! would M. Verduret think of appearing at a ball given by the wealthiest and most fashionable bankers in Paris? This accounted for his sending to the costumer.
“Then you are invited to this ball?”
The expressive eyes of M. Verduret danced with amusement.
“Not yet,” he said, “but I shall be.”
Oh, the inconsistency of the human mind! Prosper was tormented by the most serious preoccupations. He looked sadly around his chamber, and, as he thought of M. Verduret’s projected pleasure at the ball, exclaimed:
“Ah, how fortunate he is! To-morrow he will have the privilege of seeing Madeleine.”