"What?" said Dorothy. "You wanted to kill him a little while ago.... Do you want to save him now?"
Webster and his friends did not quite know what they wanted. But they refused to remain inactive any longer in presence of this heartrending spectacle. The cliff was perpendicular, but there were fissures and runlets of sand in it. Webster, seeing that the man with the rifle was no longer paying any attention to them, risked the descent. Dario and Errington followed him.
The attempt was vain. The gang had no intention of fighting. The woman started the motor. When the three young men set foot on the sand of the beach, the boat was moving out to sea, with the engine going full speed. The American vainly fired the seven shots in his revolver.
He was furious; and he said to Dorothy who got down to him:
"All the same ... all the same we should have acted differently.... There goes a band of rogues, clearing off under our very eyes."
"What can we do?" said Dorothy. "Isn't the chief culprit punished? When they're out to sea, they'll search him again, and once certain that his pockets are really empty, that he knows the secret and will not reveal it, they'll throw their chief into the sea, along with the false Marquis, whose corpse is actually at the bottom of the hold."
"And that's enough for you? The punishment of d'Estreicher?"
"Yes."
"You hate him intensely then?"
"He murdered my father," she said.
The young men bowed gravely. Then Dario resumed:
"But the others?..."
"Let them go and get hanged somewhere else! It's much better for us. The band arrested and handed over to justice would have meant an inquiry, a trial, the whole adventure spread broadcast. Was that to our interest? The Marquis de Beaugreval advised us to settle our affairs among ourselves."
Errington sighed:
"Our affairs are all settled. The secret of the diamonds is lost."
Far away, northwards, towards Brittany, the boat was moving away.
That same evening, towards nine o'clock, after having intrusted Maître Delarue to the care of the widow Amoureux—all he thought of was getting a good night's rest and returning to his office as quickly as possible—and after having enjoined on the widow absolute silence about the assault of which she had been the victim, Errington and Dario harnessed their horses to the caravan. Saint-Quentin led One-eyed Magpie behind it. They returned by the stony path up the gorge to the ruins of Roche-Périac. Dorothy and the children resumed possession of their lodging. The three young men installed themselves in the cells of the tower.
Next morning, early, Archibald Webster mounted his motor-cycle. He did not return till noon.
"I've come from Sarzeau," he said. "I have seen the monks of the abbey. I have bought from them the ruins of Roche-Périac."
"Heavens!" cried Dorothy. "Do you mean to end your days here?"
"No; but Errington, Dario, and I wish to search in peace; and for peace there is no place like home."
"Archibald Webster, you seem to be very rich; are you as firmly bent on finding the diamonds as all that?"
"I'm bent on this business of our ancestor Beaugreval ending as it ought to end, and that chance shouldn't, some day or other, give those diamonds to some one, without any right to them, who happens to come along. Will you help us, Dorothy?"
"Goodness, no."
"Hang it! Why not?"
"Because as far as I am concerned, the adventure came to an end with the punishment of the culprit."
They looked downcast.
"Nevertheless you're staying on?"
"Yes, I need rest and my four boys need it too. Twelve days here, leading the family life with you, will do us a world of good. On the twenty-fourth of July, in the morning, I'm off."
"The date is fixed?"
"Yes."
"For us, too?"
"Yes. I'm taking you with me."
"And to where do we travel?"
"An old Manor in Vendée where, at the end of July, other descendants of the lord of Beaugreval will find themselves gathered together. I'm eager to introduce you to our cousins Davernoie and Chagny-Roborey. After that you will be at liberty to return here ... to bury yourselves with the diamonds of Golconda."
"Along with you, Dorothy?"
"Without me."
"In that case," said Webster, "I sell my ruins."
For the three young men those few days were a continuous enchantment. During the morning they searched, without any kind of method be it said, and with an ardor that lessened all the more quickly because Dorothy did not take part in their investigations. Really they were only waiting for the moment when they would be with her again. They lunched together, near the caravan, which Dorothy had established under the shade of the big oak which commanded the avenue of trees.
A delightful meal, followed by an afternoon no less delightful, and by an evening which they would have willingly prolonged till the coming of dawn. Not a cloud in the sky spoilt the beautiful weather. Not a traveler tried to make his way into their domain or pass beyond the notice they had nailed to a branch: "Private property. Man-traps."
They lived by themselves, with the four boys with whom they had become the warmest friends, and in whose games they took part, all seven of them in an ecstasy before her whom they called the wonderful Dorothy.
She charmed and dazzled them. Her presence of mind during the painful day of the 12th of July, her coolness in the chamber in the tower, her journey to the inn, her unyielding struggle against d'Estreicher, her courage, her gayety, were so many things that awoke in them an astounded admiration. She seemed to them the most natural and the most mysterious of creatures. For all that she lavished explanations on them and told them all about her childhood, her life as nurse, her life as showman, the events at the Château de Roborey and Hillocks Manor, they could not bring themselves to grasp the fact that she was at once the Princess of Argonne and circus-manager, that she was just that, manifestly as reserved as she was fanciful, manifestly the daughter of a grand seignior every whit as much as mountebank and rope-dancer. But her delicate tenderness towards the four children touched them profoundly, to such a degree did the maternal instinct reveal itself in her affectionate looks and patient care.
On the fourth day Marco Dario succeeded in drawing her aside and made his proposal:
"I have two sisters who would love you like a sister. I live in an old palace in which, if you would come to it, you would wear the air of a lady of the Renaissance."
On the fifth day the trembling Errington spoke to her of his mother, "who would be so happy to have a daughter like you." On the sixth day it was Webster's turn. On the seventh day they nearly came to blows. On the eighth day, they clamored to her to choose between them.
"Why betweenyou?" said she laughingly. "You are not the only people in my life, besides my four boys. I have relations, cousins, other suitors perhaps."
"Choose."
On the ninth day, under severe pressure, she promised to choose.
"Well there," she said. "I'll set you all in a row and kiss the one who shall be my husband."
"When?"
"On the first day of the month of August."
"Swear it!"
"I swear it."
After that they stopped searching for the diamonds. As Errington observed—and Montfaucon had said it before him—the diamonds they desired were she, Dorothy. Their ancestor Beaugreval could not have foreseen for them a more magnificent treasure.
On the morning of the 24th Dorothy gave the signal for their departure. They quitted the ruins of Roche-Périac and said good-bye to the riches of the Marquis de Beaugreval.
"All the same," said Dario. "You ought to have searched, cousin Dorothy. You only are capable of discovering what no one has discovered for two centuries."
With a careless gesture she replied:
"Our excellent ancestor took care to tell us himself where the fortune was to be found—In robore.... Let us accept his decision."
They traveled again the stages which she had traveled already, crossed the Vilaine, and took, the road to Nantes. In the villages—one must live; and the young girl accepted help from no one—Dorothy's Circus gave performances. Fresh cause for amazement on the part of the three foreigners. Dorothy conducting the parade, Dorothy on One-eyed Magpie, Dorothy addressing the public, what sparkling and picturesque scenes!
They slept two nights at Nantes, where Dorothy desired to see Maître Delarue. Quite recovered from his emotions, the notary welcomed her warmly, introduced her to his family, and kept her to lunch.
Finally on the last day of the month, starting early in the morning, they reached Hillocks Manor in the middle of the afternoon. Dorothy left the caravan in front of the gateway with the boys, and entered, accompanied by the three young men.
The court-yard was empty. The farm-servants must be at work in the fields. But through the open windows of the Manor they heard the noise of a violent discussion.
A man's voice, harsh and common—Dorothy recognized it as the voice of Voirin, the money-lender—was scolding furiously; reinforced by thumps on the table:
"You've got to pay, Monsieur Raoul. Here's the bill of sale, signed by your grandfather. At five o'clock on the 31st of July, 1921, three hundred thousand francs in bank-notes or Government securities. If not, the Manor is mine. It's four-fifty. Where's the money?"
Dorothy heard next the voice of Raoul, then the voice of Count Octave de Chagny offering to arrange to pay the sum.
"No arrangements," said the money-lender. "Bank-notes. It's four fifty-six."
Archibald Webster caught Dorothy by the sleeve and murmured:
"Raoul? It's one of our cousins?"
"Yes."
"And the other man?"
"A money-lender."
"Offer him a check."
"He won't take it."
"Why not?"
"He wants the Manor."
"What of it? We're not going to let a thing like that happen."
Dorothy said to him:
"You're a good fellow, Archibald, and I thank you. But do you think that it's by chance that we're here on the 31st of July at four minutes to five?"
She went towards the steps, mounted them, crossed the hall, and entered the room.
Two cries greeted her appearance on the scene. Raoul started up, very pale, the Countess de Chagny ran to her.
She stopped them with a gesture.
In front of the table, Voirin, supported by two friends whom he had brought as witnesses, his papers and deeds spread out before him, held his watch in his hand.
"Five o'clock!" he cried in a tone of victory.
She corrected him:
"Five o'clock by your watch, perhaps. But look at the clock. We have still three minutes."
"And what of it?" said the money-lender.
"Well, three minutes are more than we need to pay this little bill and clear you out of the house."
She opened the traveling cape she was wearing and from one of its inner pockets drew a huge yellow envelope which she tore open. Out of it came a bundle of thousand-franc notes and a packet of securities.
"Count, monsieur. No, not here. It would take rather a time; and we're eager to be by ourselves."
Gently, but with a continuous pressure, she pushed him towards the door, and his two witnesses with him.
"Excuse me, monsieur, but it's a family party ... cousins who haven't seen one another for two hundred years.... And we're eager to be by ourselves.... You're not angry with me, are you? And, by the way, you will send the receipt to Monsieur Davernoie. Au revoir, gentlemen.... There: there's five o'clock striking.... Au revoir."
When Dorothy had shut the door on the three men, she turned to find Raoul flushed and frowning; and he said:
"No, no. I can't allow it.... You should have consulted me first."
"Don't get angry," she said gently. "I wished first of all to rid you of this fellow Voirin. That gives us time to think things out."
"I've thought them out!" he snapped. "I consider that settlement null and void!"
"I beg you, Raoul—a little patience. Postpone your decision till to-morrow. By to-morrow, perhaps, I shall have persuaded you."
She kissed the Countess de Chagny, then beckoning to the three strangers, she introduced them.
"I bring you guests, madame. Our cousin George Errington, of London. Our cousin Marco Dario, of Genoa. Our cousin Archibald Webster, of Philadelphia. Knowing that you were to come here, I was determined that the family should be complete."
Thereupon she introduced Raoul Davernoie, Count Octave and his wife. They exchanged vigorous handshakes.
"Excellent," she said. "We are united as I desired, and we have thousands and thousands of things to talk about. I've seen d'Estreicher again, Raoul; and as I predicted he has been hanged. Also I met your grandfather and Juliet Assire a long way from here. But perhaps we are getting along a bit too quickly. First of all there is a most urgent duty to fulfill with regard to our three cousins who are bitter enemies of the dry régime."
She opened the cupboard and found a bottle of port and some biscuits, and as she poured out the wine, she set about relating her expedition to Roche-Périac. She told the story quickly and a trifle incoherently, omitting details and getting them in the wrong order, but for the most part giving them a comic turn which greatly amused the Count and Countess de Chagny.
"Then," said the Countess when she came to the end of her story, "the diamonds are lost?"
"That," she replied, "is the business of my three cousins. Ask them."
During the young girl's explanations, they had all three stood rather apart, listening to Dorothy, pleasant to their hosts, but wearing an absent-minded air, as if they were absorbed in their own thoughts; and those thoughts the Countess must be thinking too, as well as the Count, for there was one matter which filled the minds of all of them and made them ill at ease, till it should be cleared up.
It was Errington who took the matter up, before the Countess had asked the question; and he said to the young girl:
"Cousin Dorothy, we don't understand.... No, we're quite in the dark; and I think you won't think us indiscreet if we speak quite openly."
"Speak away, Errington."
"Ah, well, it's this—that three hundred thousand francs——"
"Where did they come from?" said Dorothy ending his sentence for him. "That's what you want to know, isn't it?"
"Well, yes."
She bent towards the Englishman's ear and whispered:
"All my savings ... earned by the sweat of my brow."
"I beg you...."
"Doesn't that explanation satisfy you? Then I'll be frank."
She bent towards his other ear, and in a lower whisper still:
"I stole them."
"Oh, don't joke about it, cousin."
"But goodness, George Errington, if I did not steal them, what do you suppose I did do?"
He said slowly:
"My friends and I are asking ourselves if you didn't find them."
"Where?"
"In the ruins of Périac!"
She clapped her hands.
"Bravo! They've guessed it. You're right, George Errington, of London: I found them at the foot of a tree, under a heap of dead leaves and stones. That's where the Marquis de Beaugreval hid his bank-notes and six per cents."
The other two cousins stepped forward. Marco Dario, who looked very worried, said gravely: "Be serious, cousin Dorothy, we beg you, and don't laugh at us. Are we to consider the diamonds lost or found? It's a matter of great importance to some of us—I admit that it is to me. I had given up hopes of them. But now all at once you let us imagine an unexpected miracle. Is there one?"
She said:
"But why this supposition?"
"Firstly because of this unexpected money which we might attribute to the sale of one of the diamonds. And then ... and then.... I must say it, because it seems to us, taking it all round, quite impossible that you should have given up the search for that treasure. What? You, Dorothy, after months of conflicts and victories, at the moment you reach your goal, you suddenly decide to stand by with your arms folded! Not a single effort! Not one investigation! No, no, on your part it's incredible."
She looked from one to the other mischievously.
"So that according to you, cousins, I must have performed the double miracle of finding the diamonds without searching for them."
"There's nothing you couldn't do," said Webster gayly.
The Countess supported them:
"Nothing, Dorothy. And I see from your air that you've succeeded in this too."
She did not say no. She smiled quietly. They were all round her, curious or anxious. The Countess murmured:
"You have succeeded. Haven't you?"
"Yes," said Dorothy.
She had succeeded! The insoluble problem, with which so many minds had wrestled so many times and at such length, for ages—she had solved it!
"But when? At what moment?" cried George Errington. "You never left us!"
"Oh, it goes a long way further back than that. It goes back to my visit to the Château de Roborey."
"Eh, what? What's that you say?" cried the astounded Count de Chagny.
"From the first minute I knew at any rate the nature of the hiding-place in which the treasure was shut up."
"But how?"
"From the motto."
"From the motto?"
"But it's so plain! So plain that I've never understood the blindness of those who have searched for the treasure, and that I went so far as to declare the man who, when concealing a treasure, gave so much information about it, ingenuous in the extreme. But he was right, was the Marquis de Beaugreval. He could engrave it all over the place, on the clock of his château, on the wax of his seals, since to his descendants his motto meant nothing at all."
"If you knew, why didn't you act at once?" said the Countess.
"I knew the nature of the hiding-place, but not the spot on which it stood. This information was supplied by the gold medal. Three hours after my arrival at the ruins I knew all about it."
Marco Dario repeated several times.
"In robore fortuna.... In robore fortuna...."
And the others also pronounced the three words, as if they were a cabalistic formula, the mere utterance of which is sufficient to produce marvelous results.
"Dario," she said, "you know Latin? And you, Errington? And you, Webster?"
"Well enough," said Dario, "to make out the sense of those three words—there's nothing tricky about them.Fortunameans the fortune...."
"In this case the diamonds," said she.
"That's right," said Dario; and he continued his translation: "The diamonds are ... inrobore...."
"In the firm heart," said Errington, laughing.
"In vigor, in force," added Webster.
"And for you three that's all that the word 'robore,' the ablative of the Latin word 'robur' means?"
"Goodness, yes!" they answered. "Robur... force ... firmness ... energy."
She shrugged her shoulders disdainfully:
"Ah, well, I, who know just about as much Latin as you do, but have the very great advantage over you of being a country girl—to me, when I walk in the country and see that variety of oak which is called therouvre, it nearly always occurs that the old French wordrouvreis derived from the Latin word 'robur,' which means force, and also means oak. And that's what led me, when on the 12th of July I passed, along with you, near the oak, which stands out so prominently in the middle of the clearing, at the beginning of the avenue of oaks—that's what led me to make the connection between that tree and the hiding-place, and so to translate the information which our ancestor untiringly repeated to us: 'I have hidden my fortune in the hollow of a rouvre oak.' There you are. As you perceive,—it's as simple as winking."
Having made her explanation with a charming gayety, she was silent. The three young men gazed at her in wonder and amazement. Her charming eyes were full of her simple satisfaction at having astonished her friends by this uncommon quality, this inexplicable faculty with which she was gifted.
"Youaredifferent," said Webster. "You belong to a race ... a race——"
"A race of sound Frenchmen, who have plenty of good sense, like all the French."
"No, no," said he, incapable of formulating the thoughts which oppressed all three of them. "No, no. It's something else."
He bent down before her and brushed her hand with his lips. Errington and Dario also bent down in the same respectful act, while, to hide her emotion she mechanically translated:
"Fortuna, fortune.... Inrobore, in the oak."
And she added:
"In the deepest depths of the oak, in the heart of the oak, one might say. There was about six feet from the ground one of those ring-shaped swellings, that scar which wounds in the trunks of trees leave. And I had an intuition that that was the place in which I must search, and that there the Marquis de Beaugreval had buried the diamonds he was keeping for his second existence. There was nothing else to do but make the test. That's what I did, during the first few nights while my three cousins were sleeping. Saint-Quentin and I got to work at our exploring with our gimlets and saws and center-bits. And one evening I suddenly came across something too hard to bore. I had not been mistaken. The opening was enlarged and one by one I drew out of it four balls of the size of a hazel-nut. All I had to do was to clear off a regular matrix of dirt to bring to light four diamonds. Here are three of them. The fourth is in pawn with Maître Delarue, who very kindly agreed, after a good deal of hesitation, and a minute expert examination by his jeweler, to lend me the necessary money till to-morrow."
She gave the three diamonds to her three friends, magnificent stones, of the same size, quite extraordinary size, and cut in the old-fashioned way with opposing facets. Errington, Webster, and Dario found it disturbing merely to look at them and handle them. Two centuries before, the Marquis de Beaugreval, that strange visionary, dead of his splendid dream of a resurrection, had intrusted them to the very tree under which doubtless he used to go and lie and read. For two hundred years Nature had continued her slow and uninterrupted work of building walls, ever and ever thicker walls, round the little prison chosen with such a subtle intelligence. For two hundred years generation after generation had passed near this fabulous treasure searching for it perhaps by reason of a confused legend, and now the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of the good man, having discovered the undiscoverable secret, and penetrated to the most mysterious and obscure of caskets, offered them the precious stones which their ancestor had brought back from the Indies.
"Keep them," she said. "Three families sprung from the three sons of the Marquis have lived outside France. The French descendants of the fourth son will share the fourth diamond."
"What do you mean?" asked Count Octave in a tone of surprise.
"I say that we are three French heirs, you, Raoul, and I, that each diamond, according to the jeweler's valuation is worth several millions, and that our rights, the rights of all three of us, are equal."
"My right is null," said Count Octave.
"Why?" she said. "We are partners. A compact, a promise to share the treasure made you a partner with my father and Raoul's father."
"A lapsed compact!" cried Raoul Davernoie in his turn. "For my part I accept nothing. The will leaves no room for discussion. Four medals, four diamonds. Your three cousins and you, Dorothy; you only have the right to inherit the riches of the Marquis!"
She protested warmly:
"And you too, Raoul! You too! We fought together! Your grandfather was a direct descendant of the Marquis! He possessed the token of the medal!"
"That medal was of no value."
"How do you know? You've never had it in your hands."
"I have."
"Impossible. There was nothing in the disc I fished up under your eyes. It was simply a bait to catch d'Estreicher. Then?"
"When my grandfather came back from his journey to Roche-Périac, where you met him with Juliet Assire, one day I found him weeping in the orchard. He was looking at a gold medal, which he let me take from him and look at. On it were all the indications you have described. But the two faces were canceled by a cross, which manifestly, as I told you, deprived it of all value."
Dorothy appeared greatly surprised by this revelation, and she replied in an absent-minded tone:
"Oh! ... really?... You saw?..."
She went to one of the windows and stood there for some minutes, her forehead resting against a pane. The last veils which obscured the adventure were withdrawn. Really there had been two gold medals. One, which was invalid and belonged to Jean d'Argonne, had been stolen by d'Estreicher, recovered by Raoul's father, and sent to the old Baron. The other, the valid one was the one which belonged to the old Baron, who, out of prudence or greed, had never spoken of it to his son or grandson. In his madness, and dispossessed in his turn of the token, which he had hidden in his dog's collar, he had gone to win the treasure with the other medal, which he had intrusted to Juliet Assire, and which d'Estreicher had been unable to find.
All at once Dorothy saw all the consequences which followed this revelation. In taking from the dog's collar the medal which she believed to be hers, she had robbed Raoul of his inheritance. In returning to the Manor and offering alms to the son of the man who had been an accomplice in her father's murder, she had imagined that she was performing an act of generosity and forgiveness, whereas she was merely restoring a small portion of that of which she had robbed him.
She restrained herself and said nothing. She must act cautiously in order that Raoul might never suspect his father's crime. When she came from the window to the middle of the room, you would have said that her eyes were full of tears. Nevertheless she was smiling, and she said in a careless tone:
"Serious business to-morrow. To-day let us rejoice at being reunited and celebrate that reunion. Will you invite me to dinner, Raoul? And my children too?"
She had recovered all her gayety. She ran to the big gateway of the orchard and called the boys, who came joyfully. The Captain threw himself into the arms of the Countess de Chagny. Saint-Quentin kissed her hand. They observed that Castor and Pollux had swollen noses, signs of a recent conflict.
The dinner was washed down with sparkling cider and champagne. All the evening Dorothy was light-hearted and affectionate to them all. They felt that she was happy to be alive.
Archibald Webster recalled her promise to her. It was the next day, the first of August, that she was to choose among her suitors.
"I stick to my promise," she said.
"You will choose among those who are here? For I suppose that cousin Raoul is not the last to come forward as a candidate."
"Among those who are here. And as there can be only one chosen, I insist on kissing you all to-night."
She kissed the four young men, then the Count and Countess, then the four boys.
The party did not break up till midnight.
Next morning Raoul, Octave de Chagny, his wife, and the three strangers were at breakfast in the dining-room when a farm servant brought a letter.
Raoul looked at the handwriting and murmured gloomily:
"Ah, a letter from her.... Like the last time.... She has gone."
He remembered, as did the Count and Countess, her departure from Roborey.
He tore open the letter and read aloud:
"Raoul, my friend,"I earnestly beg you to believe blindly what I am going to tell you. It was revealed to me by certain facts which I learnt only yesterday."What I am writing is not a supposition, but an absolute certainty. I know it as surely as I know that light exists, and though I have very sound reasons for not divulging the proofs of it, I nevertheless wish you to act and think with the same conviction and serenity as I do myself."By my eternal salvation, this is the truth. Errington, Webster, Dario, and you, Raoul, are the veritable heirs of the Marquis de Beaugreval, specified in his will. Therefore the fourth diamond is yours. Webster will be delighted to go to Nantes to-morrow to give Maître Delarue a check for three hundred thousand francs and bring you back the diamond. I am sending to Maître Delarue at the same time as the receipt which he signed, the necessary instructions."I will confess, Raoul, that I felt a little disappointed yesterday when I discerned the truth—not much—just a few tears. To-day I am quite contented. I had no great liking for that fortune—too many crimes and too many horrors went with it. Some things I should never have been able to forget. And then ... and then money is a prison; and I could not bear to live locked up."Raoul, and you, my three new friends, you asked me,—rather by way of a joke, wasn't it?—to choose a sweetheart among those who found themselves at the Manor yesterday. May I answer you in rather the same manner, that my choice is made, that it is only possible for me to devote myself to the youngest of my four boys first, then to the others? Don't be angry with me, my friends. My heart, up to now, is only the heart of a mother; and it only thrills with tenderness, anxiety and love for them. What would they do if I were to leave them? What would become of my poor Montfaucon? They need me and the really healthy life we lead together. Like them I am a nomad, a vagabond. There is no dwelling-place as good as our caravan. Let me go back to the high road."And then, after a time we will meet again, shall we? Our cousins the de Chagny will welcome us at Roborey. Come, let us fix a date. Christmas and New Year's Day there—does that please you?"Good-bye, my friend. My best love to you all, and a few tears....In robore fortuna.Fortune is in the firm heart."I kiss you all."Dorothy."
"Raoul, my friend,
"I earnestly beg you to believe blindly what I am going to tell you. It was revealed to me by certain facts which I learnt only yesterday.
"What I am writing is not a supposition, but an absolute certainty. I know it as surely as I know that light exists, and though I have very sound reasons for not divulging the proofs of it, I nevertheless wish you to act and think with the same conviction and serenity as I do myself.
"By my eternal salvation, this is the truth. Errington, Webster, Dario, and you, Raoul, are the veritable heirs of the Marquis de Beaugreval, specified in his will. Therefore the fourth diamond is yours. Webster will be delighted to go to Nantes to-morrow to give Maître Delarue a check for three hundred thousand francs and bring you back the diamond. I am sending to Maître Delarue at the same time as the receipt which he signed, the necessary instructions.
"I will confess, Raoul, that I felt a little disappointed yesterday when I discerned the truth—not much—just a few tears. To-day I am quite contented. I had no great liking for that fortune—too many crimes and too many horrors went with it. Some things I should never have been able to forget. And then ... and then money is a prison; and I could not bear to live locked up.
"Raoul, and you, my three new friends, you asked me,—rather by way of a joke, wasn't it?—to choose a sweetheart among those who found themselves at the Manor yesterday. May I answer you in rather the same manner, that my choice is made, that it is only possible for me to devote myself to the youngest of my four boys first, then to the others? Don't be angry with me, my friends. My heart, up to now, is only the heart of a mother; and it only thrills with tenderness, anxiety and love for them. What would they do if I were to leave them? What would become of my poor Montfaucon? They need me and the really healthy life we lead together. Like them I am a nomad, a vagabond. There is no dwelling-place as good as our caravan. Let me go back to the high road.
"And then, after a time we will meet again, shall we? Our cousins the de Chagny will welcome us at Roborey. Come, let us fix a date. Christmas and New Year's Day there—does that please you?
"Good-bye, my friend. My best love to you all, and a few tears....In robore fortuna.Fortune is in the firm heart.
"I kiss you all.
"Dorothy."
A long silence followed the reading of this letter.
At the end of it Count Octave said:
"Strange creature! When one considers that she had the four diamonds in her pocket, that is to say ten or twelve million francs, and that it would have been so easy for her to say nothing and keep them."
But the young men did not take up this train of thought. For them Dorothy was the very spirit of happiness. And happiness was going away.
Raoul looked at his watch and beckoned to them to come with him. He led them to the highest point of the Hillocks.
On the horizon, on a white road which ran upwards among the meadows, the caravan was moving. Three boys walked beside One-eyed Magpie. Saint-Quentin was leading him.
Behind, all alone, Dorothy—Princess of Argonne and rope-dancer.