Half reclining upon a sofa, Mme. Blanche was listening to a new book which Aunt Medea was reading aloud, and she did not even raise her head as the servant delivered his message.
“A man?” she asked, carelessly; “what man?”
She was expecting no one; it must be one of the laborers employed by Martial.
“I cannot inform Madame,” replied the servant. “He is quite a young man; is dressed like a peasant, and is perhaps, seeking a place.”
“It is probably the marquis whom he desires to see.”
“Madame will excuse me, but he said particularly that he desired to speak to her.”
“Ask his name and his business, then. Go on, aunt,” she added; “we have been interrupted in the most interesting portion.”
But Aunt Medea had not time to finish the page when the servant reappeared.
“The man says Madame will understand his business when she hears his name.”
“And his name?”
“Chupin.”
It was as if a bomb-shell had exploded in the room.
Aunt Medea, with a shriek, dropped her book, and sank back, half fainting, in her chair.
Blanche sprang up with a face as colorless as her white cashmerepeignoir, her eyes troubled, her lips trembling.
“Chupin!” she repeated, as if she hoped the servant would tell her she had not understood him correctly; “Chupin!”
Then angrily:
“Tell this man that I will not see him, I will not see him, do you hear?”
But before the servant had time to bow respectfully and retire, the young marquise changed her mind.
“One moment,” said she; “on reflection I think I will see him. Bring him up.”
The servant withdrew, and the two ladies looked at each other in silent consternation.
“It must be one of Chupin’s sons,” faltered Blanche, at last.
“Undoubtedly; but what does he desire?”
“Money, probably.” Aunt Medea lifted her eyes to heaven.
“God grant that he knows nothing of your meetings with his father! Blessed Jesus! what if he should know.”
“You are not going to despair in advance! We shall know all in a few moments. Pray be calm. Turn your back to us; look out into the street; do not let him see your face. But why is he so long in coming?”
Blanche was not deceived. It was Chupin’s eldest son; the one to whom the dying poacher had confided his secret.
Since his arrival in Paris he had been running the streets from morning until evening, inquiring everywhere and of everybody the address of the Marquis de Sairmeuse. At last he discovered it; and he lost no time in presenting himself at the Hotel Meurice.
He was now awaiting the result of his application at the entrance of the hotel, where he stood whistling, with his hands in his pockets, when the servant returned, saying:
“She consents to see you; follow me.”
Chupin obeyed; but the servant, greatly astonished, and on fire with curiosity, loitered by the way in the hope of obtaining some explanation from this country youth.
“I do not say it to flatter you, my boy,” he remarked, “but your name produced a great effect upon madame.”
The prudent peasant carefully concealed the joy he felt on receiving this information.
“How does it happen that she knows you?” pursued the servant. “Are you both from the same place?”
“I am her foster-brother.”
The servant did not believe a word of this response; but they had reached the apartment of the marquise, he opened the door and ushered Chupin into the room.
The peasant had prepared a little story in advance, but he was so dazzled by the magnificence around him that he stood motionless with staring eyes and gaping mouth. His wonder was increased by a large mirror opposite the door, in which he could survey himself from head to foot, and by the beautiful flowers on the carpet, which he feared to crush beneath his heavy shoes.
After a moment, Mme. Blanche decided to break the silence.
“What do you wish?” she demanded.
With many circumlocutions Chupin explained that he had been obliged to leave Sairmeuse on account of the numerous enemies he had there, that he had been unable to find his father’s hidden treasure, and that he was consequently without resources.
“Enough!” interrupted Mme. Blanche. Then in a manner not in the least friendly, she continued: “I do not understand why you should apply to me. You and all the rest of your family have anything but an enviable reputation in Sairmeuse; still, as you are from that part of the country, I am willing to aid you a little on condition that you do not apply to me again.”
Chupin listened to this homily with a half-cringing, half-impudent air; when it was finished he lifted his head, and said, proudly:
“I do not ask for alms.”
“What do you ask then?”
“My dues.”
The heart of Mme. Blanche sank, and yet she had courage to cast a glance of disdain upon the speaker, and said:
“Ah! do I owe you anything?”
“You owe me nothing personally, Madame; but you owe a heavy debt to my deceased father. In whose service did he perish? Poor old man! he loved you devotedly. His last words were of you. ‘A terrible thing has just happened at the Borderie, my boy,’ said he. ‘The young marquise hated Marie-Anne, and she has poisoned her. Had it not been for me she would have been lost. I am about to die; let the whole blame rest upon me; it will not hurt me, and it will save the young lady. And afterward she will reward you; and as long as you keep the secret you will want for nothing.’”
Great as was his impudence, he paused, amazed by the perfectly composed face of the listener.
In the presence of such wonderful dissimulation he almost doubted the truth of his father’s story.
The courage and heroism displayed by the marquise were really wonderful. She felt if she yielded once, she would forever be at the mercy of this wretch, as she was already at the mercy of Aunt Medea.
“In other words,” said she, calmly, “you accuse me of the murder of Mademoiselle Lacheneur; and you threaten to denounce me if I do not yield to your demands.”
Chupin nodded his head in acquiescence.
“Very well!” said the marquise; “since this is the case—go!”
It seemed, indeed, as if she would, by her audacity, win this dangerous game upon which her future peace depended. Chupin, greatly abashed, was standing there undecided what course to pursue when Aunt Medea, who was listening by the window, turned in affright, crying:
“Blanche! your husband—Martial! He is coming!”
The game was lost. Blanche saw her husband entering, finding Chupin, conversing with him, and discovering all!
Her brain whirled; she yielded.
She hastily thrust her purse in Chupin’s hand and dragged him through an inner door and to the servants’ staircase.
“Take this,” she said, in a hoarse whisper. “I will see you again. And not a word—not a word to my husband, remember!”
She had been wise to yield in time. When she re-entered the salon, she found Martial there.
His head was bowed upon his breast; he held an open letter in his hand.
He looked up when his wife entered the room, and she saw a tear in his eye.
“What has happened?” she faltered.
Martial did not remark her emotion.
“My father is dead, Blanche,” he replied.
“The Duc de Sairmeuse! My God! how did it happen?”
“He was thrown from his horse, in the forest, near the Sanguille rocks.”
“Ah! it was there where my poor father was nearly murdered.”
“Yes, it is the very place.”
There was a moment’s silence.
Martial’s affection for his father had not been very deep, and he was well aware that his father had but little love for him. He was astonished at the bitter grief he felt on hearing of his death.
“From this letter which was forwarded by a messenger from Sairmeuse,” he continued, “I judge that everybody believes it to have been an accident; but I—I——”
“Well?”
“I believe he was murdered.”
An exclamation of horror escaped Aunt Medea, and Blanche turned pale.
“Murdered!” she whispered.
“Yes, Blanche; and I could name the murderer. Oh! I am not deceived. The murderer of my father is the same man who attempted to assassinate the Marquis de Courtornieu——”
“Jean Lacheneur!”
Martial gravely bowed his head. It was his only reply.
“And you will not denounce him? You will not demand justice?”
Martial’s face grew more and more gloomy.
“What good would it do?” he replied. “I have no material proofs to give, and justice demands incontestable evidence.”
Then, as if communing with his own thoughts, rather than addressing his wife, he said, despondently:
“The Duc de Sairmeuse and the Marquis de Courtornieu have reaped what they have sown. The blood of murdered innocence always calls for vengeance. Sooner or later, the guilty must expiate their crimes.”
Blanche shuddered. Each word found an echo in her own soul. Had he intended his words for her, he would not have expressed himself differently.
“Martial,” said she, trying to arouse him from his gloomy revery, “Martial.”
He did not seem to hear her, and, in the same tone, he continued:
“These Lacheneurs were happy and honored before our arrival at Sairmeuse. Their conduct was above all praise; their probity amounted to heroism. We might have made them our faithful and devoted friends. It was our duty, as well as in our interests, to have done so. We did not understand this; we humiliated, ruined, exasperated them. It was a fault for which we must atone. Who knows but, in Jean Lacheneur’s place, I should have done what he has done?”
He was silent for a moment; then, with one of those sudden inspirations that sometimes enable one almost to read the future, he resumed:
“I know Jean Lacheneur. I alone can fathom his hatred, and I know that he lives only in the hope of vengeance. It is true that we are very high and he is very low, but that matters little. We have everything to fear. Our millions form a rampart around us, but he will know how to open a breach. And no precautions will save us. At the very moment when we feel ourselves secure, he will be ready to strike. What he will attempt, I know not; but his will be a terrible revenge. Remember my words, Blanche, if ruin ever threatens our house, it will be Jean Lacheneur’s work.”
Aunt Medea and her niece were too horror-stricken to articulate a word, and for five minutes no sound broke the stillness save Martial’s monotonous tread, as he paced up and down the room.
At last he paused before his wife.
“I have just ordered post-horses. You will excuse me for leaving you here alone. I must go to Sairmeuse at once. I shall not be absent more than a week.”
He departed from Paris a few hours later, and Blanche was left a prey to the most intolerable anxiety. She suffered more now than during the days that immediately followed her crime. It was not against phantoms she was obliged to protect herself now; Chupin existed, and his voice, even if it were not as terrible as the voice of conscience, might make itself heard at any moment.
If she had known where to find him, she would have gone to him, and endeavored, by the payment of a large sum of money, to persuade him to leave France.
But Chupin had left the hotel without giving her his address.
The gloomy apprehension expressed by Martial increased the fears of the young marquise. The mere sound of the name Lacheneur made her shrink with terror. She could not rid herself of the idea that Jean Lacheneur suspected her guilt, and that he was watching her.
Her wish to find Marie-Anne’s infant was stronger than ever.
It seemed to her that the child might be a protection to her some day. But where could she find an agent in whom she could confide?
At last she remembered that she had heard her father speak of a detective by the name of Chelteux, an exceedingly shrewd fellow, capable of anything, even honesty if he were well paid.
The man was really a miserable wretch, one of Fouche’s vilest instruments, who had served and betrayed all parties, and who, at last, had been convicted of perjury, but had somehow managed to escape punishment.
After his dismissal from the police-force, Chelteux founded a bureau of private information.
After several inquiries, Mme. Blanche discovered that he lived in the Place Dauphine; and she determined to take advantage of her husband’s absence to pay the detective a visit.
One morning she donned her simplest dress, and, accompanied by Aunt Medea, repaired to the house of Chelteux.
He was then, about thirty-four years of age, a man of medium height, of inoffensive mien, and who affected an unvarying good-humor.
He invited his clients into a nicely furnished drawing-room, and Mme. Blanche at once began telling him that she was married, and living in the Rue Saint-Denis, that one of her sisters, who had lately died, had been guilty of an indiscretion, and that she was ready to make any sacrifice to find this sister’s child, etc., etc. A long story, which she had prepared in advance, and which sounded very plausible.
Chelteux did not believe a word of it, however; for, as soon as it was ended, he tapped her familiarly on the shoulder, and said:
“In short, my dear, we have had our little escapades before our marriage.”
She shrank back as if from some venomous reptile.
To be treated thus! she—a Courtornieu—Duchesse de Sairmeuse!
“I think you are laboring under a wrong impression,” she said, haughtily.
He made haste to apologize; but while listening to further details given him by the young lady, he thought:
“What an eye! what a voice!—they are not suited to a denizen of the Saint-Denis!”
His suspicions were confirmed by the reward of twenty thousand francs, which Mme. Blanche imprudently promised him in case of success, and by the five hundred francs which she paid in advance.
“And where shall I have the honor of addressing my communications to you, Madame?” he inquired.
“Nowhere,” replied the young lady. “I shall be passing here from time to time, and I will call.”
When they left the house, Chelteux followed them.
“For once,” he thought, “I believe that fortune smiles upon me.”
To discover the name and rank of his new clients was but child’s play to Fouche’s former pupil.
His task was all the easier since they had no suspicion whatever of his designs. Mme. Blanche, who had heard his powers of discernment so highly praised, was confident of success.
All the way back to the hotel she was congratulating herself upon the step she had taken.
“In less than a month,” she said to Aunt Medea, “we shall have the child; and it will be a protection to us.”
But the following week she realized the extent of her imprudence. On visiting Chelteux again, she was received with such marks of respect that she saw at once she was known.
She made an attempt to deceive him, but the detective checked her.
“First of all,” he said, with a good-humored smile, “I ascertain the identity of the persons who honor me with their confidence. It is a proof of my ability, which I give, gratis. But Madame need have no fears. I am discreet by nature and by profession. Many ladies of the highest ranks are in the position of Madame la Duchesse!”
So Chelteux still believed that the Duchesse de Sairmeuse was searching for her own child.
She did not try to convince him to the contrary. It was better that he should believe this than suspect the truth.
The condition of Mme. Blanche was now truly pitiable. She found herself entangled in a net, and each movement far from freeing her, tightened the meshes around her.
Three persons knew the secret that threatened her life and honor. Under these circumstances, how could she hope to keep that secret inviolate? She was, moreover, at the mercy of three unscrupulous masters; and before a word, or a gesture, or a look from them, her haughty spirit was compelled to bow in meek subservience.
And her time was no longer at her own disposal. Martial had returned; and they had taken up their abode at the Hotel de Sairmeuse.
The young duchess was now compelled to live under the scrutiny of fifty servants—of fifty enemies, more or less, interested in watching her, in criticising her every act, and in discovering her inmost thoughts.
Aunt Medea, it is true, was of great assistance to her. Blanche purchased a dress for her, whenever she purchased one for herself, took her about with her on all occasions, and the humble relative expressed her satisfaction in the most enthusiastic terms, and declared her willingness to do anything for her benefactress.
Nor did Chelteux give Mme. Blanche much more annoyance. Every three months he presented a memorandum of the expenses of investigations, which usually amounted to about ten thousand francs; and so long as she paid him it was plain that he would be silent.
He had given her to understand, however, that he should expect an annuity of twenty-four thousand francs; and once, when Mme. Blanche remarked that he must abandon the search, if nothing had been discovered at the end of two years:
“Never,” he replied: “I shall continue the search as long as I live.” But Chupin, unfortunately, remained; and he was a constant terror.
She had been compelled to give him twenty thousand francs, to begin with.
He declared that his younger brother had come to Paris in pursuit of him, accusing him of having stolen their father’s hoard, and demanding his share with his dagger in his hand.
There had been a battle, and it was with a head bound up in a blood-stained linen, that Chupin made his appearance before Mme. Blanche.
“Give me the sum that the old man buried, and I will allow my brother to think that I had stolen it. It is not very pleasant to be regarded as a thief, when one is an honest man, but I will bear it for your sake. If you refuse, I shall be compelled to tell him where I have obtained my money and how.”
If he possessed all the vices, depravity, and coldblooded perversity of his father, this wretch had inherited neither his intelligence nor hisfinesse.
Instead of taking the precautions which his interest required, he seemed to find a brutal pleasure in compromising the duchess.
He was a constant visitor at the Hotel de Sairmeuse. He came and went at all hours, morning, noon, and night, without troubling himself in the least about Martial.
And the servants were amazed to see their haughty mistress unhesitatingly leave everything at the call of this suspicious-looking character, who smelledsostrongly of tobacco and vile brandy.
One evening, while a grand entertainment was in progress at the Hotel de Sairmeuse, he made his appearance, half drunk, and imperiously ordered the servants to go and tell Mme. Blanche that he was there, and that he was waiting for her.
She hastened to him in her magnificent evening-dress, her face white with rage and shame beneath her tiara of diamonds. And when, in her exasperation, she refused to give the wretch what he demanded:
“That is to say, I am to starve while you are revelling here!” he exclaimed. “I am not such a fool. Give me money, and instantly, or I will tell all I know here and now!”
What could she do? She was obliged to yield, as she had always done before.
And yet he grew more and more insatiable every day. Money remained in his pockets no longer than water remains in a sieve. But he did not think of elevating his vices to the proportions of the fortune which he squandered. He did not even provide himself with decent clothing; from his appearance one would have supposed him a beggar, and his companions were the vilest and most degraded of beings.
One night he was arrested in a low den, and the police, surprised at seeing so much gold in the possession of such a beggarly looking wretch, accused him of being a thief. He mentioned the name of the Duchesse de Sairmeuse.
An inspector of the police presented himself at the Hotel de Sairmeuse the following morning. Martial, fortunately, was in Vienna at the time.
And Mme. Blanche was forced to undergo the terrible humiliation of confessing that she had given a large sum of money to this man, whose family she had known, and who, she added, had once rendered her an important service.
Sometimes her tormentor changed his tactics.
For example, he declared that he disliked to come to the Hotel de Sairmeuse, that the servants treated him as if he were a mendicant, that after this he would write.
And in a day or two there would come a letter bidding her bring such a sum, to such a place, at such an hour.
And the proud duchess was always punctual at the rendezvous.
There was constantly some new invention, as if he found an intense delight in proving his power and in abusing it.
He had met, Heaven knows where! a certain Aspasie Clapard, to whom he took a violent fancy, and although she was much older than himself, he wished to marry her. Mme. Blanche paid for the wedding-feast.
Again he announced his desire of establishing himself in business, having resolved, he said, to live by his own exertions. He purchased the stock of a wine merchant, which the duchess paid for, and which he drank in no time.
His wife gave birth to a child, and Mme. de Sairmeuse must pay for the baptism as she had paid for the wedding, only too happy that Chupin did not require her to stand as godmother to little Polyte. He had entertained this idea at first.
On two occasions Mme. Blanche accompanied her husband to Vienna and to London, whither he went charged with important diplomatic missions. She remained three years in foreign lands.
Each week during all that time she received one letter, at least, from Chupin.
Ah! many a time she envied the lot of her victim! What was Marie-Anne’s death compared with the life she led?
Her sufferings were measured by years, Marie-Anne’s by minutes; and she said to herself, again and again, that the torture of poison could not be as intolerable as her agony.
How was it that Martial had failed to discover or to suspect this state of affairs?
A moment’s reflection will explain this fact which is so extraordinary in appearance, so natural in reality.
The head of a family, whether he dwells in an attic or in a palace, is always the last to know what is going on in his home. What everybody else knows he does not even suspect. The master often sleeps while his house is on fire. Some terrible catastrophe—an explosion—is necessary to arouse him from his fancied security.
The life that Martial led was likely to prevent him from arriving at the truth. He was a stranger to his wife. His manner toward her was perfect, full of deference and chivalrous courtesy; but they had nothing in common except a name and certain interests.
Each lived their own life. They met only at dinner, or at the entertainments which they gave and which were considered the most brilliant in Paris society.
The duchess had her own apartments, her servants, her carriages, her horses, her own table.
At twenty-five, Martial, the last descendant of the great house of Sairmeuse—a man upon whom destiny had apparently lavished every blessing—the possessor of youth, unbounded wealth, and a brilliant intellect, succumbed beneath the burden of an incurable despondency andennui.
The death of Marie-Anne had destroyed all his hopes of happiness; and realizing the emptiness of his life, he did his best to fill the void with bustle and excitement. He threw himself headlong into politics, striving to find in power and in satisfied ambition some relief from his despondency.
It is only just to say that Mme. Blanche had remained superior to circumstances; and that she had played the role of a happy, contented woman with consummate skill.
Her frightful sufferings and anxiety never marred the haughty serenity of her face. She soon won a place as one of the queens of Parisian society; and plunged into dissipation with a sort of frenzy. Was she endeavoring to divert her mind? Did she hope to overpower thought by excessive fatigue?
To Aunt Medea alone did Blanche reveal her secret heart.
“I am like a culprit who has been bound to the scaffold, and then abandoned by the executioner, who says, as he departs: ‘Live until the axe falls of its own accord.’”
And the axe might fall at any moment. A word, a trifle, an unlucky chance—she dared not say “a decree of Providence,” and Martial would know all.
Such, in all its unspeakable horror, was the position of the beautiful and envied Duchesse de Sairmeuse. “She must be perfectly happy,” said the world; but she felt herself sliding down the precipice to the awful depths below.
Like a shipwrecked mariner clinging to a floating spar, she scanned the horizon with a despairing eye, and saw only angry and threatening clouds.
Time, perhaps, might bring her some relief.
Once it happened that six weeks went by, and she heard nothing from Chupin. A month and a half! What had become of him? To Mme. Blanche this silence was as ominous as the calm that precedes the storm.
A line in a newspaper solved the mystery.
Chupin was in prison.
The wretch, after drinking more heavily than usual one evening, had quarrelled with his brother, and had killed him by a blow upon the head with a piece of iron.
The blood of the betrayed Lacheneur was visited upon the heads of his murderer’s children.
Tried by the Court of Assizes, Chupin was condemned to twenty years of hard labor, and sent to Brest.
But this sentence afforded the duchess no relief. The culprit had written to her from his Paris prison; he wrote to her from Brest.
But he did not send his letters through the post. He confided them to comrades, whose terms of imprisonment had expired, and who came to the Hotel de Sairmeuse demanding an interview with the duchess.
And she received them. They told all the miseries they had endured “out there;” and usually ended by requesting some slight assistance.
One morning, a man whose desperate appearance and manner frightened her, brought the duchess this laconic epistle:
“I am tired of starving here; I wish to make my escape. Come to Brest; you can visit the prison, and we will decide upon some plan. If you refuse to do this, I shall apply to the duke, who will obtain my pardon in exchange of what I will tell him.”
Mme. Blanche was dumb with horror. It was impossible, she thought, to sink lower than this.
“Well!” demanded the man, harshly. “What reply shall I make to my comrade?”
“I will go—tell him that I will go!” she said, driven to desperation.
She made the journey, visited the prison, but did not find Chupin.
The previous week there had been a revolt in the prison, the troops had fired upon the prisoners, and Chupin had been killed instantly.
Still the duchess dared not rejoice.
She feared that her tormentor had told his wife the secret of his power.
“I shall soon know,” she thought.
The widow promptly made her appearance; but her manner was humble and supplicating.
She had often heard her dear, dead husband say that madame was his benefactress, and now she came to beg a little aid to enable her to open a small drinking saloon.
Her son Polyte—ah! such a good son! just eighteen years old, and such a help to his poor mother—had discovered a little house in a good situation for the business, and if they only had three or four hundred francs——
Mme. Blanche gave her five hundred francs.
“Either her humility is a mask,” she thought, “or her husband has told her nothing.”
Five days later Polyte Chupin presented himself.
They needed three hundred francs more before they could commence business, and he came on behalf of his mother to entreat the kind lady to advance them.
Determined to discover exactly where she stood, the duchess shortly refused, and the young man departed without a word.
Evidently the mother and son were ignorant of the facts. Chupin’s secret had died with him.
This happened early in January. Toward the last of February, Aunt Medea contracted inflammation of the lungs on leaving a fancy ball, which she attended in an absurd costume, in spite of all the attempts which her niece made to dissuade her.
Her passion for dress killed her. Her illness lasted only three days; but her sufferings, physical and mental, were terrible.
Constrained by her fear of death to examine her own conscience, she saw plainly that by profiting by the crime of her niece she had been as culpable as if she had aided her in committing it. She had been very devout in former years, and now her superstitious fears were reawakened and intensified. Her faith returned, accompanied by acortegeof terrors.
“I am lost!” she cried; “I am lost!”
She tossed to and fro upon her bed; she writhed and shrieked as if she already saw hell opening to engulf her.
She called upon the Holy Virgin and upon all the saints to protect her. She entreated God to grant her time for repentance and for expiation. She begged to see a priest, swearing she would make a full confession.
Paler than the dying woman, but implacable, Blanche watched over her, aided by that one of her personal attendants in whom she had most confidence.
“If this lasts long, I shall be ruined,” she thought. “I shall be obliged to call for assistance, and she will betray me.”
It did not last long.
The patient’s delirium was succeeded by such utter prostration that it seemed each moment would be her last.
But toward midnight she appeared to revive a little, and in a voice of intense feeling, she said:
“You have had no pity, Blanche. You have deprived me of all hope in the life to come. God will punish you. You, too, shall die like a dog; alone, without a word of Christian counsel or encouragement. I curse you!”
And she died just as the clock was striking two.
The time when Blanche would have given almost anything to know that Aunt Medea was beneath the sod, had long since passed.
Now, the death of the poor old woman affected her deeply.
She had lost an accomplice who had often consoled her, and she had gained nothing, since one of her maids was now acquainted with the secret of the crime at the Borderie.
Everyone who was intimately acquainted with the Duchesse de Sairmeuse, noticed her dejection, and was astonished by it.
“Is it not strange,” remarked her friends, “that the duchess—such a very superior woman—should grieve so much for that absurd relative of hers?”
But the dejection of Mme. Blanche was due in great measure to the sinister prophecies of the accomplice to whom she had denied the last consolations of religion.
And as her mind reviewed the past she shuddered, as the peasants at Sairmeuse had done, when she thought of the fatality which had pursued the shedders of innocent blood.
What misfortune had attended them all—from the sons of Chupin, the miserable traitor, up to her father, the Marquis de Courtornieu, whose mind had not been illumined by the least gleam of reason for ten long years before his death.
“My turn will come!” she thought.
The Baron and the Baroness d’Escorval, and old Corporal Bavois had departed this life within a month of each other, the previous year, mourned by all.
So that of all the people of diverse condition who had been connected with the troubles at Montaignac, Blanche knew only four who were still alive.
Maurice d’Escorval, who had entered the magistracy, and was now a judge in the tribunal of the Seine; Abbe Midon, who had come to Paris with Maurice, and Martial and herself.
There was another person, the bare recollection of whom made her tremble, and whose name she dared not utter.
Jean Lacheneur, Marie-Anne’s brother.
An inward voice, more powerful than reason, told her that this implacable enemy was still alive, watching for his hour of vengeance.
More troubled by her presentiments now, than she had been by Chupin’s persecutions in days gone by, Mme. de Sairmeuse decided to apply to Chelteux in order to ascertain, if possible, what she had to expect.
Fouche’s former agent had not wavered in his devotion to the duchess. Every three months he presented his bill, which was paid without discussion; and to ease his conscience, he sent one of his men to prowl around Sairmeuse for a while, at least once a year.
Animated by the hope of a magnificent reward, the spy promised his client, and—what was more to the purpose—promised himself, that he would discover this dreaded enemy.
He started in quest of him, and had already begun to collect proofs of Jean’s existence, when his investigations were abruptly terminated.
One morning the body of a man literally hacked in pieces was found in an old well. It was the body of Chelteux.
“A fitting close to the career of such a wretch,” said theJournal des Debats, in noting the event.
When she read this news, Mme. Blanche felt as a culprit would feel on reading his death-warrant.
“The end is near,” she murmured. “Lacheneur is coming!”
The duchess was not mistaken.
Jean had told the truth when he declared that he was not disposing of his sister’s estate for his own benefit. In his opinion, Marie-Anne’s fortune must be consecrated to one sacred purpose; he would not divert the slightest portion of it to his individual needs.
He was absolutely penniless when the manager of a travelling theatrical company engaged him for a consideration of forty-five francs per month.
From that day he lived the precarious life of a strolling player. He was poorly paid, and often reduced to abject poverty by lack of engagements, or by the impecuniosity of managers.
His hatred had lost none of its virulence; but to wreak the desired vengeance upon his enemy, he must have time and money at his disposal.
But how could he accumulate money when he was often too poor to appease his hunger?
Still he did not renounce his hopes. His was a rancor which was only intensified by years. He was biding his time while he watched from the depths of his misery the brilliant fortunes of the house of Sairmeuse.
He had waited sixteen years, when one of his friends procured him an engagement in Russia.
The engagement was nothing; but the poor comedian was afterward fortunate enough to obtain an interest in a theatrical enterprise, from which he realized a fortune of one hundred thousand francs in less than six years.
“Now,” said he, “I can give up this life. I am rich enough, now, to begin the warfare.”
And six weeks later he arrived in his native village.
Before carrying any of his atrocious designs into execution, he went to Sairmeuse to visit Marie-Anne’s grave, in order to obtain there an increase of animosity, as well as the relentlesssang-froidof a stern avenger of crime.
That was his only motive in going, but, on the very evening of his arrival, he learned through a garrulous old peasant woman that ever since his departure—that is to say, for a period of twenty years—two parties had been making persistent inquiries for a child which had been placed somewhere in the neighborhood.
Jean knew that it was Marie-Anne’s child they were seeking. Why they had not succeeded in finding it, he knew equally well.
But why were there two persons seeking the child? One was Maurice d’Escorval, of course, but who was the other?
Instead of remaining at Sairmeuse a week, Jean Lacheneur tarried there a month; and by the expiration of that month he had traced these inquiries concerning the child to the agent of Chelteux. Through him, he reached Fouche’s former spy; and, finally, succeeded in discovering that the search had been instituted by no less a person than the Duchesse de Sairmeuse.
This discovery bewildered him. How could Mme. Blanche have known that Marie-Anne had given birth to a child; and knowing it, what possible interest could she have had in finding it?
These two questions tormented Jean’s mind continually; but he could discover no satisfactory answer.
“Chupin’s son could tell me, perhaps,” he thought. “I must pretend to be reconciled to the sons of the wretch who betrayed my father.”
But the traitor’s children had been dead for several years, and after a long search, Jean found only the Widow Chupin and her son, Polyte.
They were keeping a drinking-saloon not far from the Chateau-des-Rentiers; and their establishment, known as the Poivriere, bore anything but an enviable reputation.
Lacheneur questioned the widow and her son in vain; they could give him no information whatever on the subject. He told them his name, but even this did not awaken the slightest recollection in their minds.
Jean was about to take his departure when Mother Chupin, probably in the hope of extracting a few pennies, began to deplore her present misery, which was, she declared, all the harder to bear since she had wanted for nothing during the life of her poor husband, who had always obtained as much money as he wanted from a lady of high degree—the Duchesse de Sairmeuse, in short.
Lacheneur uttered such a terrible oath that the old woman and her son started back in affright.
He saw at once the close connection between the researches of Mme. Blanche and her generosity to Chupin.
“It was she who poisoned Marie-Anne,” he said to himself. “It was through my sister that she became aware of the existence of the child. She loaded Chupin with favors because he knew the crime she had committed—that crime in which his father had been only an accomplice.”
He remembered Martial’s oath at the bedside of the murdered girl, and his heart overflowed with savage exultation. He saw his two enemies, the last of the Sairmeuse and the last of the Courtornieu take in their own hands his work of vengeance.
But this was mere conjecture; he desired to be assured of the correctness of his suppositions.
He drew from his pocket a handful of gold, and, throwing it upon the table, he said:
“I am very rich; if you will obey me and keep my secret, your fortune is made.”
A shrill cry of delight from mother and son outweighed any protestations of obedience.
The Widow Chupin knew how to write, and Lacheneur dictated this letter:
“Madame la Duchesse—I shall expect you at my establishment to-morrow between twelve and four o’clock. It is on business connected with the Borderie. If at five o’clock I have not seen you, I shall carry to the post a letter for the duke.”
“And if she comes what am I to say to her?” asked the astonished widow.
“Nothing; you will merely ask her for money.”
“If she comes, it is as I have guessed,” he reflected.
She came.
Hidden in the loft of the Poivriere, Jean, through an opening in the floor, saw the duchess give a banknote to Mother Chupin.
“Now, she is in my power!” he thought exultantly. “Through what sloughs of degradation will I drag her before I deliver her up to her husband’s vengeance!”