Kneeling by the half-open door, Blanche eagerly watched the workings of the poison which she had administered.
She was so near her victim that she could distinguish the throbbing of her temples, and sometimes she fancied she could feel upon her cheek her rival’s breath, which scorched like flame.
An utter prostration followed Marie-Anne’s paroxysm of agony. One would have supposed her dead had it not been for the convulsive workings of the jaws and her labored breathing.
But soon the nausea returned, and she was seized with vomiting. Each effort to relieve seemed to wrench her whole body; and gradually a ghastly tint crept over her face, the spots upon her cheeks became more pronounced in tint, her eyes appeared ready to burst from their sockets, and great drops of perspiration rolled down her cheeks.
Her sufferings must have been intolerable. She moaned feebly at times, and occasionally rendered heart-rending shrieks. Then she faltered fragmentary sentences; she begged piteously for water or entreated God to shorten her torture.
“Ah, it is horrible! I suffer too much! Death! My God! grant me death!”
She invoked all the friends she had ever known, calling for aid in a despairing voice.
She called Mme. d’Escorval, the abbe, Maurice, her brother, Chanlouineau, Martial!
Martial, this name was more than sufficient to extinguish all pity in the heart of Mme. Blanche.
“Go on! call your lover, call!” she said to herself, bitterly. “He will come too late.”
And as Marie-Anne repeated the name in a tone of agonized entreaty:
“Suffer!” continued Mme. Blanche, “suffer, you who have inspired Martial with the odious courage to forsake me, his wife, as a drunken lackey would abandon the lowest of degraded creatures! Die, and my husband will return to me repentant.”
No, she had no pity. She felt a difficulty in breathing, but that resulted simply from the instinctive horror which the sufferings of others inspire—an entirely different physical impression, which is adorned with the fine name of sensibility, but which is, in reality, the grossest selfishness.
And yet, Marie-Anne was perceptibly sinking. Soon she had not strength even to moan; her eyes closed, and after a spasm which brought a bloody foam to her lips, her head sank back, and she lay motionless.
“It is over,” murmured Blanche.
She rose, but her limbs trembled so that she could scarcely stand.
Her heart remained firm and implacable; but the flesh failed.
Never had she imagined a scene like that which she had just witnessed. She knew that poison caused death; she had not suspected the agony of that death.
She no longer thought of augmenting Marie-Anne’s sufferings by upbraiding her. Her only desire now was to leave this house, whose very floor seemed to scorch her feet.
A strange, inexplicable sensation crept over her; it was not yet fright, it was the stupor that follows the commission of a terrible crime—the stupor of the murderer.
Still, she compelled herself to wait a few moments longer; then seeing that Marie-Anne still remained motionless and with closed eyes, she ventured to softly open the door and to enter the room in which her victim was lying.
But she had not advanced three steps before Marie-Anne suddenly, and as if she had been galvanized by an electric battery, rose and extended her arms to bar her enemy’s passage.
This movement was so unexpected and so frightful that Mme. Blanche recoiled.
“The Marquise de Sairmeuse,” faltered Marie-Anne. “You, Blanche—here!”
And her suffering, explained by the presence of this young girl who once had been her friend, but who was now her bitterest enemy, she exclaimed:
“You are my murderer!”
Blanche de Courtornieu’s was one of those iron natures that break, but never bend.
Since she had been discovered, nothing in the world would induce her to deny her guilt.
She advanced resolutely, and in a firm voice:
“Yes,” she said, “I have taken my revenge. Do you think I did not suffer that evening when you sent your brother to take away my newly wedded husband, upon whose face I have not gazed since?”
“Your husband! I sent to take him away! I do not understand you.”
“Do you then dare to deny that you are not Martial’s mistress!”
“The Marquis de Sairmeuse! I saw him yesterday for the first time since Baron d’Escorval’s escape.”
The effort which she had made to rise and to speak had exhausted her strength. She fell back in the armchair.
But Blanche was pitiless.
“You have not seen Martial! Tell me, then, who gave you this costly furniture, these silken hangings, all the luxury that surrounds you?”
“Chanlouineau.”
Blanche shrugged her shoulders.
“So be it,” she said, with an ironical smile, “but is it Chanlouineau for whom you are waiting this evening? Is it for Chanlouineau you have warmed these slippers and laid this table? Was it Chanlouineau who sent his clothing by a peasant named Poignot? You see that I know all——”
But her victim was silent.
“For whom are you waiting?” she insisted. “Answer!”
“I cannot!”
“You know that it is your lover! wretched woman—my husband, Martial!”
Marie-Anne was considering the situation as well as her intolerable sufferings and troubled mind would permit.
Could she tell what guests she was expecting?
To name Baron d’Escorval to Blanche, would it not ruin and betray him? They hoped for a safe-conduct, a revision of judgment, but he was none the less under sentence of death, executory in twenty-four hours.
“So you refuse to tell me whom you expect here in an hour—at midnight.”
“I refuse.”
But a sudden impulse took possession of the sufferer’s mind.
Though the slightest movement caused her intolerable agony, she tore open her dress and drew from her bosom a folded paper.
“I am not the mistress of the Marquis de Sairmeuse,” she said, in an almost inaudible voice; “I am the wife of Maurice d’Escorval. Here is the proof—read.”
No sooner had Blanche glanced at the paper, than she became as pale as her victim. Her sight failed her; there was a strange ringing in her ears, a cold sweat started from every pore.
This paper was the marriage-certificate of Maurice and Marie-Anne, drawn up by the cure of Vigano, witnessed by the old physician and Bavois, and sealed with the seal of the parish.
The proof was indisputable. She had committed a useless crime; she had murdered an innocent woman.
The first good impulse of her life made her heart beat more quickly. She did not stop to consider; she forgot the danger to which she exposed herself, and in a ringing voice she cried:
“Help! help!”
Eleven o’clock was sounding; the whole country was asleep. The farm-house nearest the Borderie was half a league distant.
The voice of Blanche was lost in the deep stillness of the night.
In the garden below Aunt Medea heard it, perhaps; but she would have allowed herself to be chopped in pieces rather than stir from her place.
And yet, there was one who heard that cry of distress. Had Blanche and her victim been less overwhelmed with despair, they would have heard a noise upon the staircase which creaked beneath the tread of a man who was cautiously ascending it. But it was not a saviour, for he did not answer the appeal. But even though there had been aid near at hand, it would have come too late.
Marie-Anne felt that there was no longer any hope for her, and that it was the chill of death which was creeping up to her heart. She felt that her life was fast ebbing away.
So, when Blanche seemed about to rush out in search of assistance, she detained her by a gesture, and gently said:
“Blanche.”
The murderess paused.
“Do not summon anyone; it would do no good. Remain; be calm, that I may at least die in peace. It will not be long now.”
“Hush! do not speak so. You must not, you shall not die! If you should die—great God! what would my life be afterward?”
Marie-Anne made no reply. The poison was pursuing its work of dissolution. Her breath made a whistling sound as it forced its way through her inflamed throat; her tongue, when she moved it, produced in her mouth the terrible sensation of a piece of red-hot iron; her lips were parched and swollen; her hands, inert and paralyzed, would no longer obey her will.
But the horror of the situation restored Blanche’s calmness.
“All is not yet lost,” she exclaimed. “It was in that great box there upon the table, where I found”—she dared not utter the word poison—“the white powder which I poured into the bowl. You know this powder; you must know the antidote.”
Marie-Anne sadly shook her head.
“Nothing can save me now,” she murmured, in an almost inaudible voice; “but I do not complain. Who knows the misery from which death may preserve me? I do not crave life; I have suffered so much during the past year; I have endured such humiliation; I have wept so much! A curse was upon me!”
She was suddenly endowed with that clearness of mental vision so often granted to the dying. She saw how she had wrought her own undoing by consenting to accept the perfidious role imposed upon her by her father, and how she, herself, had paved the way for the falsehoods, slander, crimes and misfortunes of which she had been the victim.
Her voice grew fainter and fainter. Worn out by suffering, a sensation of drowsiness stole over her. She was falling asleep in the arms of death.
Suddenly such a terrible thought pierced the stupor which enveloped her that she uttered a heart-breaking cry:
“My child!”
Collecting, by a superhuman effort, all the will, energy, and strength that the poison had left her, she straightened herself in her arm-chair, her features contracted by mortal anguish.
“Blanche!” she said, with an energy of which one would have supposed her incapable. “Blanche, listen to me. It is the secret of my life which I am about to disclose; no one suspects it. I have a son by Maurice. Alas! many months have elapsed since my husband disappeared. If he is dead, what will become of my child? Blanche, you, who have killed me, must swear to me that you will be a mother to my child!”
Blanche was utterly overcome.
“I swear!” she sobbed, “I swear!”
“On that condition, but on that condition alone, I pardon you. But take care! Do not forget your oath! Blanche, God sometimes permits the dead to avenge themselves! You have sworn, remember.
“My spirit will allow you no rest if you do not fulfil your vow.”
“I will remember,” sobbed Blanche; “I will remember. But the child——”
“Ah! I was afraid—cowardly creature that I was! I dreaded the shame—then Maurice insisted—I sent my child away—your jealousy and my death are my punishment. Poor child! I abandoned him to strangers. Wretched woman that I am! Ah! this suffering is too horrible. Blanche, remember——”
She spoke again, but her words were indistinct, inaudible.
Blanche frantically seized the dying woman’s arm, and endeavored to arouse her.
“To whom have you confided your child?” she repeated; “to whom? Marie-Anne—a word more—a single word—a name, Marie-Anne!”
The unfortunate woman’s lips moved, but the death-rattle sounded in her throat; a terrible convulsion shook her form; she slid down from the chair, and fell full length upon the floor.
Marie-Anne was dead—dead, and she had not disclosed the name of the old physician at Vigano to whom she had intrusted her child. She was dead, and the terrified murderess stood in the middle of the room, as rigid and motionless as a statue. It seemed to her that madness—a madness like that which had stricken her father—was developing itself in her brain.
She forgot everything; she forgot that a guest was expected at midnight, that time was flying, and that she would surely be discovered if she did not flee.
But the man who had entered when she cried for aid was watching over her. When he saw that Marie-Anne had breathed her last, he made a slight noise at the door, and thrust his leering face into the room.
“Chupin!” faltered Mme. Blanche.
“In the flesh,” he responded. “This was a grand chance for you. Ah, ha! The business riled your stomach a little, but nonsense! that will soon pass off. But we must not dawdle here; someone may come in. Let us make haste.”
Mechanically the murderess advanced; but Marie-Anne’s dead body lay between her and the door, barring the passage. To leave the room it was necessary to step over the lifeless form of her victim. She had not courage to do this, and recoiled with a shudder.
But Chupin was troubled by no such scruples. He sprang across the body, lifted Blanche as if she had been a child and carried her out of the house.
He was drunk with joy. Fears for the future no longer disquieted him, now that Mme. Blanche was bound to him by the strongest of chains—complicity in crime.
He saw himself on the threshold of a life of ease and continual feasting. Remorse for Lacheneur’s betrayal had ceased to trouble him. He saw himself sumptuously fed, lodged and clothed; above all, effectually guarded by an army of servants.
Blanche, who had experienced a feeling of deadly faintness, was revived by the cool night air.
“I wish to walk,” said she.
Chupin placed her on the ground about twenty paces from the house.
“And Aunt Medea!” she exclaimed.
Her relative was beside her; like one of those dogs who are left at the door when their master enters a house, she had, instinctively followed her niece on seeing her borne from the cottage by the old poacher.
“We must not stop to talk,” said Chupin. “Come, I will lead the way.”
And taking Blanche by the arm, he hastened toward the grove.
“Ah! so Marie-Anne had a child,” he said, as they hurried on. “She was pretending to be such a saint! But where the devil has she put it?”
“I shall find it.”
“Hum! That is easier said than done.”
A shrill laugh, resounding in the darkness, interrupted him. He released his hold on the arm of Blanche and assumed an attitude of defence.
Vain precaution! A man concealed behind a tree bounded upon him, and, plunging his knife four times into the old poacher’s writhing body, cried:
“Holy Virgin! now is my vow fulfilled! I shall no longer be obliged to eat with my fingers!”
“The innkeeper!” groaned the wounded man, sinking to the earth.
For once in her life, Aunt Medea manifested some energy.
“Come!” she shrieked, wild with fear, dragging her niece away. “Come—he is dead!”
Not quite. The traitor had strength to crawl home and knock at the door.
His wife and youngest son were sleeping soundly. His eldest son, who had just returned home, opened the door.
Seeing his father prostrate on the ground, he thought he was intoxicated, and tried to lift him and carry him into the house, but the old poacher begged him to desist.
“Do not touch me,” said he. “It is all over with me; but listen; Lacheneur’s daughter has just been poisoned by Madame Blanche. It was to tell you this that I dragged myself here. This knowledge is worth a fortune, my boy, if you are not a fool!”
And he died, without being able to tell his family where he had concealed the price of Lacheneur’s blood.
Of all the persons who witnessed Baron d’Escorval’s terrible fall, the abbe was the only one who did not despair.
What a learned doctor would not have dared to do, he did.
He was a priest; he had faith. He remembered the sublime saying of Ambroise Pare: “I dress the wound: God heals it.”
After a six months’ sojourn in Father Poignot’s secluded farm-house, M. d’Escorval was able to sit up and to walk about a little, with the aid of crutches.
Then he began to be seriously inconvenienced by his cramped quarters in the loft, where prudence compelled him to remain; and it was with transports of joy that he welcomed the idea of taking up his abode at the Borderie with Marie-Anne.
When the day of departure had been decided upon, he counted the minutes as impatiently as a school-boy pining for vacation.
“I am suffocating here,” he said to his wife. “I am suffocating. Time drags so slowly. When will the happy day come?”
It came at last. During the morning all the articles which they had succeeded in procuring during their stay at the farm-house were collected and packed; and when night came, Poignot’s son began the moving.
“Everything is at the Borderie,” said the honest fellow, on returning from his last trip, “and Mademoiselle Lacheneur bids the baron bring a good appetite.”
“I shall have one, never fear!” responded the baron, gayly. “We shall all have one.”
Father Poignot himself was busily engaged in harnessing his best horse to the cart which was to convey M. d’Escorval to his new home.
The worthy man’s heart grew sad at the thought of the departure of these guests, for whose sake he had incurred such danger. He felt that he should miss them, that the house would seem gloomy and deserted after they left it.
He would allow no one else to perform the task of arranging the mattress comfortably in the cart. When this had been done to his satisfaction, he heaved a deep sigh, and exclaimed:
“It is time to start!”
Slowly he ascended the narrow staircase leading to the loft.
M. d’Escorval had not thought of the moment of parting.
At the sight of the honest farmer, who came toward him, his face crimsoned with emotion to bid him farewell, he forgot all the comforts that awaited him at the Borderie, in the remembrance of the loyal and courageous hospitality he had received in the house he was about to leave. The tears sprang to his eyes.
“You have rendered me a service which nothing can repay, Father Poignot,” he said, with intense feeling. “You have saved my life.”
“Oh! we will not talk of that, Baron. In my place, you would have done the same—neither more nor less.”
“I shall not attempt to express my thanks, but I hope to live long enough to prove that I am not ungrateful.”
The staircase was so narrow that they had considerable difficulty in carrying the baron down; but finally they had him comfortably extended upon his mattress and threw over him a few handsful of straw, which concealed him entirely.
“Farewell, then!” said the old farmer, when the last hand-shake had been exchanged, “or ratherau revoir, Monsieur le Baron, Madame, and you, my good cure.”
“All ready?” inquired young Poignot.
“Yes,” replied the invalid.
The cart, driven with the utmost caution by the young peasant, started slowly on its way.
Mme. d’Escorval, leaning upon the abbe’s arm, walked about twenty paces in the rear.
It was very dark, but had it been as light as day the former cure of Sairmeuse might have encountered any of his old parishioners without the least danger of detection.
His hair and his beard had been allowed to grow; his tonsure had entirely disappeared, and his sedentary life had caused him to become much stouter. He was clad like all the well-to-do peasants of the neighborhood, and his face was hidden by a large slouch hat.
He had not felt so tranquil in mind for months. Obstacles which had appeared almost insurmountable had vanished. In the near future he saw the baron declared innocent by impartial judges; he saw himself reinstalled in the presbytery of Sairmeuse.
The recollection of Maurice was the only thing that marred his happiness. Why did he not give some sign of life?
“But if he had met with any misfortune we should have heard of it,” thought the priest. “He has with him a brave man—an old soldier who would risk anything to come and tell us.”
He was so absorbed in these thoughts that he did not observe that Mme. d’Escorval was leaning more and more heavily upon his arm.
“I am ashamed to confess it,” she said at last, “but I can go no farther. It has been so long since I was out of doors that I have almost forgotten how to walk.”
“Fortunately, we are almost there,” replied the priest.
A moment after young Poignot stopped his cart in the road, at the entrance of the little footpath leading to the Borderie.
“Our journey is ended!” he remarked to the baron. Then he uttered a low whistle, like that which he had given a few hours before, to warn Marie-Anne of his arrival.
No one appeared; he whistled again, louder this time; then with all his might—still no response.
Mme. d’Escorval and the abbe had now overtaken the cart.
“It is very strange that Marie-Anne does not hear me,” remarked young Poignot, turning to them. “We cannot take the baron to the house until we have seen her. She knows that very well. Shall I run up and warn her?”
“She is asleep, perhaps,” replied the abbe; “you stay with your horse, my boy, and I will go and wake her.”
Certainly he did not feel the slightest disquietude. All was calm and still; a bright light was shining through the windows of the second story.
Still, when he saw the open door, a vague presentiment of evil stirred his heart.
“What can this mean?” he thought.
There was no light in the lower rooms, and the abbe was obliged to feel for the staircase with his hands. At last he found it and went up. But upon the threshold of the chamber he paused, petrified with horror by the spectacle before him.
Poor Marie-Anne was lying on the floor. Her eyes, which were wide open, were covered with a white film; her black and swollen tongue was hanging from her mouth.
“Dead!” faltered the priest, “dead!”
But this could not be. The abbe conquered his weakness, and approaching the poor girl, he took her hand.
It was icy cold; the arm was rigid as iron.
“Poisoned!” he murmured; “poisoned with arsenic.”
He rose to his feet, and cast a bewildered glance around the room. His eyes fell upon his medicine-chest, open upon the table.
He rushed to it and unhesitatingly took out a vial, uncorked it, and inverted it on the palm of his hand—it was empty.
“I was not mistaken!” he exclaimed.
But he had no time to lose in conjectures.
The first thing to be done was to induce the baron to return to the farm-house without telling him the terrible misfortune which had occurred.
To find a pretext was easy enough.
The priest hastened back to the wagon, and with well-affected calmness told the baron that it would be impossible for him to take up his abode at the Borderie at present, that several suspicious-looking characters had been seen prowling about, and that they must be more prudent than ever, now they could rely upon the kindly intervention of Martial de Sairmeuse.
At last, but not without considerable reluctance, the baron yielded.
“You desire it, cure,” he sighed, “so I obey. Come, Poignot, my boy, take me back to your father’s house.”
Mme. d’Escorval took a seat in the cart beside her husband; the priest watched them as they drove away, and not until the sound of their carriage-wheels had died away in the distance did he venture to go back to the Borderie.
He was ascending the stairs when he heard moans that seemed to issue from the chamber of death. The sound sent all his blood wildly rushing to his heart. He darted up the staircase.
A man was kneeling beside Marie-Anne, weeping bitterly. The expression of his face, his attitude, his sobs betrayed the wildest despair. He was so lost in grief that he did not observe the abbe’s entrance.
Who was this mourner who had found his way to the house of death?
After a moment, the priest divined who the intruder was, though he did not recognize him.
“Jean!” he cried, “Jean Lacheneur!”
With a bound the young man was on his feet, pale and menacing; a flame of anger drying the tears in his eyes.
“Who are you?” he demanded, in a terrible voice. “What are you doing here? What do you wish with me?”
By his peasant dress and by his long beard, the former cure of Sairmeuse was so effectually disguised that he was obliged to tell who he really was.
As soon as he uttered his name, Jean uttered a cry of joy.
“God has sent you here!” he exclaimed. “Marie-Anne cannot be dead! You, who have saved so many others, will save her.”
As the priest sadly pointed to heaven, Jean paused, his face more ghastly than before. He understood now that there was no hope.
“Ah!” he murmured, with an accent of frightful despondency, “fate shows us no mercy. I have been watching over Marie-Anne, though from a distance; and this very evening I was coming to say to her: ‘Beware, sister—be cautious!’”
“What! you knew——”
“I knew she was in great danger; yes, Monsieur. An hour ago, while I was eating my supper in a restaurant at Sairmeuse, Grollet’s son entered. ‘Is this you, Jean?’ said he. ‘I just saw Chupin hiding near your sister’s house; when he observed me he slunk away.’ I ran here like one crazed. But when fate is against a man, what can he do? I came too late!”
The abbe reflected for a moment.
“Then you suppose that it was Chupin?”
“I do not suppose, sir; Iswearthat it was he—the miserable traitor!—who committed this foul deed.”
“Still, what motive could he have had?”
Jean burst into one of those discordant laughs that are, perhaps, the most frightful signs of despair.
“You may rest assured that the blood of the daughter will yield him a richer reward than did the father’s. Chupin has been the vile instrument; but it was not he who conceived the crime. You will have to seek higher for the culprit, much higher, in the finest chateau of the country, in the midst of an army of valets at Sairmeuse, in short!”
“Wretched man, what do you mean?”
“What I say.”
And coldly, he added:
“Martial de Sairmeuse is the assassin.” The priest recoiled, really appalled by the looks and manner of the grief-stricken man.
“You are mad!” he said, severely.
But Jean gravely shook his head.
“If I seem so to you, sir,” he replied, “it is only because you are ignorant of Martial’s wild passion for Marie-Anne. He wished to make her his mistress. She had the audacity to refuse this honor; that was a crime for which she must be punished. When the Marquis de Sairmeuse became convinced that Lacheneur’s daughter would never be his, he poisoned her that she might not belong to another.”
Any attempt to convince Jean of the folly of his accusation would have been vain at that moment. No proofs would have convinced him. He would have closed his eyes to all evidence.
“To-morrow, when he is more calm, I will reason with him,” thought the abbe; then, turning to Jean, he said:
“We cannot allow the body of the poor girl to remain here upon the floor. Assist me, and we will place it upon the bed.”
Jean trembled from head to foot, and his hesitation was apparent.
“Very well!” he said, at last, after a severe struggle.
No one had ever slept upon this bed which poor Chanlouineau had destined for Marie-Anne.
“It shall be for her,” he said to himself, “or for no one.”
And it was Marie-Anne who rested there first—dead.
When this sad task was accomplished, he threw himself into the same arm-chair in which Marie-Anne had breathed her last, and with his face buried in his hands, and his elbows supported upon his knees, he sat there as silent and motionless as the statues of sorrow placed above the last resting-places of the dead.
The abbe knelt at the head of the bed and began the recital of the prayers for the dead, entreating God to grant peace and happiness in heaven to her who had suffered so much upon earth.
But he prayed only with his lips. In spite of his efforts, his mind would persist in wandering.
He was striving to solve the mystery that enshrouded Marie-Anne’s death. Had she been murdered? Could it be that she had committed suicide?
This explanation recurred to him, but he could not believe it.
But, on the other hand, how could her death possibly be the result of a crime?
He had carefully examined the room, and he had discovered nothing that betrayed the presence of a stranger.
All that he could prove was, that his vial of arsenic was empty, and that Marie-Anne had been poisoned by the bouillon, a few drops of which were left in the bowl that was standing upon the mantel.
“When daylight comes,” thought the abbe, “I will look outside.”
When morning broke, he went into the garden, and made a careful examination of the premises.
At first he saw nothing that gave him the least clew, and was about to abandon the investigations, when, upon entering the little grove, he saw in the distance a large dark stain upon the grass. He went nearer—it was blood!
Much excited, he summoned Jean, to inform him of the discovery.
“Someone has been assassinated here,” said Lacheneur; “and it happened last night, for the blood has not had time to dry.”
“The victim lost a great deal of blood,” the priest remarked; “it might be possible to discover who he was by following up these stains.”
“I am going to try,” responded Jean. “Go back to the house, sir; I will soon return.”
A child might have followed the track of the wounded man, the blood-stains left in his passage were so frequent and so distinct.
These tell-tale marks stopped at Chupin’s house. The door was closed; Jean rapped without the slightest hesitation.
The old poacher’s eldest son opened the door, and Jean saw a strange spectacle.
The traitor’s body had been thrown on the ground, in a corner of the room, the bed was overturned and broken, all the straw had been torn from the mattress, and the wife and sons of the dead man, armed with pickaxes and spades, were wildly overturning the beaten soil that formed the floor of the hovel. They were seeking the hidden treasures.
“What do you want?” demanded the widow, rudely.
“Father Chupin.”
“You can see very plainly that he has been murdered,” replied one of the sons.
And brandishing his pick a few inches from Jean’s head, he exclaimed:
“And you, perhaps, are the assassin. But that is for justice to determine. Now, decamp; if you do not——”
Had he listened to the promptings of anger, Jean Lacheneur would certainly have attempted to make the Chupins repent their menaces.
But a conflict was scarcely permissible under the circumstances.
He departed without a word, and hastened back to the Borderie.
The death of Chupin overturned all his plans, and greatly irritated him.
“I had sworn that the vile wretch who betrayed my father should perish by my hand,” he murmured; “and now my vengeance has escaped me. Someone has robbed me of it.”
Then he asked himself who the murderer could be.
“Is it possible that Martial assassinated Chupin after he murdered Marie-Anne? To kill an accomplice is an effectual way of assuring one’s self of his silence.”
He had reached the Borderie, and was about going upstairs, when he thought he heard the sound of voices in the back room.
“That is strange,” he said to himself. “Who can it be?”
And impelled by curiosity, he went and tapped upon the communicating door.
The abbe instantly made his appearance, hurriedly closing the door behind him. He was very pale, and visibly agitated.
“Who is it?” inquired Jean, eagerly.
“It is—it is. Guess who it is.”
“How can I guess?”
“Maurice d’Escorval and Corporal Bavois.”
“My God!”
“And it is a miracle that he has not been upstairs.”
“But whence does he come? Why have we received no news of him?”
“I do not know. He has been here only five minutes. Poor boy! after I told him that his father was safe, his first words were: ‘And Marie-Anne?’ He loves her more devotedly than ever. He comes with his heart full of her, confident and hopeful; and I tremble—I fear to tell him the truth.”
“Oh, terrible! terrible!”
“I have warned you; be prudent—and now, come in.”
They entered the room together; and Maurice and the old soldier greeted Jean with the most ardent expressions of friendship.
They had not seen each other since the duel on the Reche, which had been interrupted by the arrival of the soldiers; and when they parted that day they scarcely expected to meet again.
“And now we are together once more,” said Maurice, gayly, “and we have nothing to fear.”
Never had the unfortunate man seemed so cheerful; and it was with the most jubilant air that he explained the reason of his long silence.
“Three days after we crossed the frontier,” said he, “Corporal Bavois and I reached Turin. It was time, for we were tired out. We went to a small inn, and they gave us a room with two beds.
“That evening, while we were undressing, the corporal said to me: ‘I am capable of sleeping two whole days without waking.’ I, too, promised myself a rest of at least twelve hours. We reckoned without our host, as you will see.
“It was scarcely daybreak when we were awakened by a great tumult. A dozen rough-looking men entered our room, and ordered us, in Italian, to dress ourselves. They were too strong for us, so we obeyed; and an hour later we were in prison, confined in the same cell. Our reflections, I confess, were notcouleur de rose.
“I well remember how the corporal said again and again, in that cool way of his: ‘It will require four days to obtain our extradition, three days to take us back to Montaignac—that is seven days; it will take one day more to try me; so I have in all eight days to live.’”
“Upon my word! that was exactly what I thought,” said the old soldier, approvingly.
“For five months,” continued Maurice, “instead of saying ‘good-night’ to each other, we said: ‘To-morrow they will come for us.’ But they did not come.
“We were kindly treated. They did not take away my money; and they willingly sold us little luxuries; they also granted us two hours of exercise each day in the court-yard, and even loaned us books to read. In short, I should not have had any particular cause to complain, if I had been allowed to receive or to forward letters, or if I had been able to communicate with my father or with Marie-Anne. But we were in the secret cells, and were not allowed to have any intercourse with the other prisoners.
“At length our detention seemed so strange and became so insupportable to us, that we resolved to obtain some explanation of it, cost what it might.
“We changed our tactics. Up to that time we had been quite submissive; we suddenly became violent and intractable. We made the prison resound with our cries and protestations; we were continually sending for the superintendent; we claimed the intervention of the French ambassador. We were not obliged to wait long for the result.
“One fine afternoon, the superintendent released us, not without expressing much regret at being deprived of the society of such amiable and charming guests.
“Our first act, as you may suppose, was to run to the ambassador. We did not see that dignitary, but his secretary received us. He knit his brows when I told my story, and became excessively grave. I remember each word of his reply.
“‘Monsieur,’ said he, ‘I can swear that the persecution of which you have been the object in France had nothing whatever to do with your detention here.’
“And as I expressed my astonishment:
“‘One moment,’ he added. ‘I shall express my opinion very frankly. One of your enemies—I leave you to discover which one—must exert a very powerful influence in Turin. You were in his way, perhaps; he had you imprisoned by the Piedmontese police.’”
With a heavy blow of his clinched fist, Jean Lacheneur made the table beside him reel.
“Ah! the secretary was right!” he exclaimed. “Maurice, it was Martial de Sairmeuse who caused your arrest——”
“Or the Marquis de Courtornieu,” interrupted the abbe, with a warning glance at Jean.
A wrathful light gleamed for an instant in the eyes of Maurice; but it vanished almost immediately, and he shrugged his shoulders carelessly.
“Nonsense,” said he, “I do not wish to trouble myself any more about the past. My father is well again, that is the main thing. We can easily find some way of getting him safely across the frontier. Marie-Anne and I, by our devotion, will strive to make him forget that my rashness almost cost him his life. He is so good, so indulgent to the faults of others. We will take up our residence in Italy or in Switzerland. You will accompany us, Monsieur l’Abbe, and you also, Jean. As for you, corporal, it is decided that you belong to our family.”
Nothing could be more horrible than to see this man, upon whose life such a terrible blight was about to fall, so bright and full of hope and confidence.
The impression produced upon Jean and the abbe was so terrible, that, in spite of their efforts, it showed itself in their faces; and Maurice remarked their agitation.
“What is the matter?” he inquired, in evident surprise.
They trembled, hung their heads, but did not say a word.
The unfortunate man’s astonishment changed to a vague, inexpressible fear.
He enumerated all the misfortunes which could possibly have befallen him.
“What has happened?” he asked, in a stifled voice. “My father is safe, is he not? You said that my mother would desire nothing, if I were with her again. Is it Marie-Anne——”
He hesitated.
“Courage, Maurice,” murmured the abbe. “Courage!”
The stricken man tottered as if about to fall; his face grew whiter than the plastered wall against which he leaned for support.
“Marie-Anne is dead!” he exclaimed.
Jean and the abbe were silent.
“Dead!” Maurice repeated—“and no secret voice warned me! Dead! when?”
“She died only last night,” replied Jean.
Maurice rose.
“Last night?” said he. “In that case, then, she is still here. Where? upstairs?”
And without waiting for any response, he darted toward the staircase so quickly that neither Jean nor the abbe had time to intercept him.
With three bounds he reached the chamber; he walked straight to the bed, and with a firm hand turned back the sheet that hid the face of the dead.
He recoiled with a heart-broken cry.
Was this indeed the beautiful, the radiant Marie-Anne, whom he had loved to his own undoing! He did not recognize her.
He could not recognize these distorted features, this face swollen and discolored by poison, these eyes which were almost concealed by the purple swelling around them.
When Jean and the priest entered the room they found him standing with head thrown back, eyes dilated with terror, and rigid arm extended toward the corpse.
“Maurice,” said the priest, gently, “be calm. Courage!”
He turned with an expression of complete bewilderment upon his features.
“Yes,” he faltered, “that is what I need—courage!”
He staggered; they were obliged to support him to an arm-chair.
“Be a man,” continued the priest; “where is your energy? To live, is to suffer.”
He listened, but did not seem to comprehend.
“Live!” he murmured, “why should I desire to live since she is dead?”
The dread light of insanity glittered in his dry eyes. The abbe was alarmed.
“If he does not weep, he will lose his reason!” he thought.
And in an imperious voice, he said:
“You have no right to despair thus; you owe a sacred duty to your child.”
He recoiled with a heart-broken cry.
The recollection which had given Marie-Anne strength to hold death at bay for a moment, saved Maurice from the dangerous torpor into which he was sinking. He trembled as if he had received an electric shock, and springing from his chair:
“That is true,” he cried. “Take me to my child.”
“Not just now, Maurice; wait a little.”
“Where is it? Tell me where it is.”
“I cannot; I do not know.”
An expression of unspeakable anguish stole over the face of Maurice, and in a husky voice he said:
“What! you do not know! Did she not confide in you?”
“No. I suspected her secret. I alone——”
“You, alone! Then the child is dead, perhaps. Even if it is living, who can tell me where it is?”
“We shall undoubtedly find something that will give us a clew.”
“You are right,” faltered the wretched man. “When Marie-Anne knew that her life was in danger, she would not have forgotten her child. Those who cared for her in her last moments must have received some message for me. I wish to see those who watched over her. Who were they?”
The priest averted his face.
“I asked you who was with her when she died,” repeated Maurice, in a sort of frenzy.
And, as the abbe remained silent, a terrible light dawned on the mind of the stricken man. He understood the cause of Marie-Anne’s distorted features now.
“She perished the victim of a crime!” he exclaimed.
“Some monster has killed her. If she died such a death, our child is lost forever! And it was I who recommended, who commanded the greatest precautions! Ah! it is a curse upon me!”
He sank back in his chair, overwhelmed with sorrow and remorse, and silent tears rolled slowly down his cheeks.
“He is saved!” thought the abbe, whose heart bled at the sight of such despair. Suddenly someone plucked him by the sleeve.
It was Jean Lacheneur, and he drew the priest into the embrasure of a window.
“What is this about a child?” he asked, harshly.
A flood of crimson suffused the brow of the priest.
“You have heard,” he responded, laconically.
“Am I to understand that Marie-Anne was the mistress of Maurice, and that she had a child by him? Is this true? I will not—I cannot believe it! She, whom I revered as a saint! Did her pure forehead and her chaste looks lie? And he—Maurice—he whom I loved as a brother! So, his friendship was only a mask assumed to enable him to steal our honor!”
He hissed these words through his set teeth in such low tones that Maurice, absorbed in his agony of grief, did not overhear him.
“But how did she conceal her shame?” he continued. “No one suspected it—absolutely no one. And what has she done with her child? Appalled by a dread of disgrace, did she commit the crime committed by so many other ruined and forsaken women? Did she murder her own child?”
A hideous smile curved his thin lips.
“If the child is alive,” he added, “I will find it, and Maurice shall be punished for his perfidy as he deserves.” He paused; the sound of horses’ hoofs upon the road attracted his attention, and that of Abbe Midon.
They glanced out of the window and saw a horseman stop before the little footpath, alight from his horse, throw the reins to his groom, and advance toward the Borderie.
At the sight of the visitor, Jean Lacheneur uttered the frightful howl of an infuriated wild beast.
“The Marquis de Sairmeuse here!” he exclaimed.
He sprang to Maurice, and shaking him violently, he cried:
“Up! here is Martial, Marie-Anne’s murderer! Up! he is coming! he is at our mercy!”
Maurice sprang up in a fury of passion, but the abbe darted to the door and intercepted the infuriated men as they were about to leave the room.
“Not a word, young men, not a threat!” he said, imperiously. “I forbid it. At least respect the dead who is lying here!”
There was such an irresistible authority in his words and glance, that Jean and Maurice stood as if turned to stone.
Before the priest had time to say more, Martial was there.
He did not cross the threshold. With a glance he took in the whole scene; he turned very pale, but not a gesture, not a word escaped his lips.
Wonderful as was his accustomed control over himself, he could not articulate a syllable; and it was only by pointing to the bed upon which Marie-Anne’s lifeless form was reposing, that he asked an explanation.
“She was infamously poisoned last evening,” replied the abbe, sadly.
Maurice, forgetting the priest’s commands, stepped forward.
“She was alone and defenceless. I have been at liberty only two days. But I know the name of the man who had me arrested at Turin, and thrown into prison. They told me the coward’s name!”
Instinctively Martial recoiled.
“It was you, infamous wretch!” exclaimed Maurice. “You confess your guilt, scoundrel?”
Once again the abbe interposed; he threw himself between the rivals, persuaded that Martial was about to attack Maurice.
But no; the Marquis de Sairmeuse had resumed the haughty and indifferent manner which was habitual to him. He took from his pocket a bulky envelope, and throwing it upon the table:
“Here,” he said coldly, “is what I was bringing to Mademoiselle Lacheneur. It contains first a safe-conduct from His Majesty for Monsieur d’Escorval. From this moment, he is at liberty to leave Poignot’s farm-house and return to Escorval. He is free, he is saved, he is granted a new trial, and there can be no doubt of his acquittal. Here is also a decree of his non-complicity rendered in favor of Abbe Midon, and an order from the bishop which reinstates him as Cure of Sairmeuse; and lastly, a discharge, drawn up in due form, and an acknowledged right to a pension in the name of Corporal Bavois.”
He paused, and as his astonished hearers stood rooted to their places with wonder, he turned and approached Marie-Anne’s bedside.
With hand uplifted to heaven over the lifeless form of her whom he had loved, and in a voice that would have made the murderess tremble in her innermost soul, he said, solemnly:
“To you, Marie-Anne, I swear that I will avenge you!”
For a few seconds he stood motionless, then suddenly he stopped, pressed a kiss upon the dead girl’s brow, and left the room.
“And you think that man can be guilty!” exclaimed the abbe. “You see, Jean, that you are mad!”
“And this last insult to my dead sister is an honor, I suppose,” said Jean, with a furious gesture.
“And the wretch binds my hands by saving my father!” exclaimed Maurice.
From his place by the window, the abbe saw Martial remount his horse.
But the marquis did not take the road to Montaignac. It was toward the Chateau de Courtornieu that he hastened.