Chapter Sixteen.“No tear relieved the burden of her heart;Stunn’d with the heavy woe.”Thalaba.The days went on for Thérèse very much as they had done at the hospital. She had but one patient instead of many, it is true, but that one absorbed all her care. Octavie had been sent from the house; thefile, who was in the habit of coming for a certain number of hours daily, took fright and kept away. Nannon took her place, but she was not permitted to enter the sick-room, and madame was utterly incapable of those little feminine cares which nursing demands. So it all rested upon Thérèse, and even when the child was unconscious there seemed to be an increase of disquietude if she was not close at hand. She thought it a bad case, and longed for M. Deshoulières’ swift perception to be brought to bear upon it, and she could not help remembering Nannon’s irreverent simile when little Pinot came into the room, with his little attempt at imitation of the other’s manner. But madame broke out violently when she suggested that M. Deshoulières should be sent for. And so there was nothing for it but to remember his injunctions, and patiently to do what was needed for the poor little man, whose naughtinesses and obstinacies were forgotten now, or recalled only with shame at her own want of forbearance.She wondered sometimes at madame’s strange ways. It was impossible to say in what mood the next hour would find her, fierce or remorseful, snappish or affectionate. Thérèse would have understood better had she known what coals of fire her unconscious hands were heaping and shovelling upon madame’s head just then. Nothing could have been so terrible to her as to see this girl whom she had injured sitting with the little hot hand in hers which the mother loved above all others in the world, and longed to tear away out of her clasp. Nothing. It almost maddened her.At last one morning M. Pinot also told her that he would suggest her sending for M. Deshoulières. “It would be a satisfaction to himself,” he said. Thérèse, who knew what those words meant, turned a little pale, and looked tenderly down upon the little ugly brown face, now so pinched and wizened and changed, which kept slipping down from the pillow.“M. Deshoulières shall not come,” answered madame, in her strange defiant tone. “The child is no worse.”“Pardon, madame. It grieves me to say—”“He is not worse, I tell you. The fever must run its course, and I have heard you say it is now only weakness.”“Madame, at this stage—”“He is not worse, I repeat again. I do not choose that M. Deshoulières should come.”“In that case—Is Monsieur Roulleau aware of the extent of this illness, may I inquire of madame?”“My husband comes to-day.”“How has she brought him?” thought Thérèse, who knew something of the force of the little notary’s fears. She had brought him by not telling him of the illness at all. There was business waiting for him, and she had told him that after it had rained she should demand his return. In her next letter she said that it had rained, that the fever was diminishing, and that on such a day he was to be at Rue St. Servan. That was all. Nannon, who admitted him, wondered as much as any one. Madame come slowly down the stairs and signed to him to enter the little bureau.“Zénobie, my angel,” he said, turning to meet her as she followed him. Something, it might have been a grey look on her face, arrested him, “What is the matter?” he said, faltering.She was a woman, after all,—wicked, cruel, but a woman. Her sin was smiting her sorely; there were those terrible coals of fire scorching, consuming her. And he was her husband, the father of her children. “Oh, Ignace, Ignace,mon ami,” she cried, piteously, stretching out her arms for support, “our little Adolphe!”“What then?”“Ah, he suffers so!”“Suffers! Is he ill?”“The fever—”“The fever!” he cried, springing back with one bound against the wall. “The fever is in this house and you let me come?”She would be patient yet. It was the first shock. He had not realised her words. “He will not know you, Ignace; he is changed and so weak; it is terrible to see him.”“Keep back!” he cried out, for she was drawing closer; “keep back! You have been nursing him, and now you speak to me! Let me go out into the air. Zénobie, how could you be so imprudent?”“You will not see him—your son?”“What is the good, what is the good? I can do nothing. See here, what a palpitation you have given me. Let me pass! I will go back to Tours at once. Let me pass! I shall be a dead man if I stay in the house with a fever.”Her wrath blazed out. “Coward!” she said, standing between him and the door, and holding him immovable with a look of supreme scorn. “Coward! And while you stand there trembling, shaking, do you know who it is who is there by his side, nursing and tending him until I am driven mad? That girl. Do you know that while I hate her, it is all I can do sometimes not to fall on my knees before her and tell her all? Do you know that he cares for her more than for me,—me, his mother?”“Zénobie, Zénobie, have patience! You will ruin us with your impetuosity.”“Listen, then. You who have not so much as the bravery of a woman in your miserable little heart—it is your child whom that girl is nursing night and day. You have no courage—have you no pity? Do you, remembering who she is, and what she is doing,—do you refuse to let her know that this man, her lover, is alive,—that you could lay your hand upon him, and bring him back to her? Do you refuse that? She may die, remember, die of nursing your child!”“Not so loud, not so loud,” said the little man uneasily. “If she were to die, we should lose the money, it is true, but it might be the safest. There would be fewer complications.”She turned from him with a look of unutterable horror. In his cowardice, and in his cruelty, he had fallen far below even her measure of wrongdoing. With a pale scared face, he was watching the door with the hope of escape, but she, like an avenging fury, stood between it and him.“Let us go into the street,” he said feebly. “I have always heard there is less danger in the open air. You will not?N’importe. Do not let me keep you, my Zénobie. Can I convey any message to your mother?”She faced him again. “If he dies!”“He will not die—no, no, he will not die, believe me. You are a little nervous, that is all. Oh, he will not die; he has an excellent constitution—Holy Virgin, what is that!”It was M. Deshoulières knocking sharply at the door. Madame Roulleau, rigid and defiant again, opened it; the little notary shrank further into the corner; the doctor entered hastily.“Mademoiselle Thérèse?” he said, looking round. “Ah, madame, may I ask you to request her to descend at once. I bring news, or, believe me, I would not incommode you at such a time.”“What news, monsieur?” asked madame, still erect.“Monsieur Saint-Martin has arrived.”Her head sank, she went out of the room and up the stairs slowly. There was a tempest in her heart when she opened the door of the sick-room. It was all very solemn and quiet, solemn with the foreshadowing of that quietness which is infinite. The child lay on the little white bed, Thérèse knelt by its side, thepersienneswere half closed, one quivering ray of sunlight touched the girl’s head, the sweet young face was full of tender sorrow. For a moment she stood speechless, watching; the next Thérèse heard a sharp keen voice in her ear:—“Why do you look like that, you! He is mine, I will not have you take away his love. And I have hated you and done you all the harm I could—do you hear?”“Hush, hush, madame,” said Thérèse softly. She looked at her, and knew that this woman in her strange excitement was speaking truth; at another time she might have been angry at the confession, but for weeks past she had been walking on the borders of that land where wrath and bitterness are hushed. She lifted her hand and pointed to the little face on the pillow. Madame dared not speak, she fell on her knees and trembled. Thérèse gently drew back thepersiennes; a sweet cool breeze came into the room, the plains were all steeped in a kind of subdued sunshine, silvery, and broken with clouds. There were long shadows on the roofs and gables, birds singing in the gardens of the Evêché; presently the murmur of a distant chant came swinging up from the Cathedral, where all the windows were open. No service was going on, but the choristers were practising arequiem, very sad and sweet, yet now and then breaking into triumphant chorus. Thérèse fancied she caught the words,—“requiem, dona eis requiem,” shrill, clear, boyish voices answering one another. Rest was very near one of the three in that room. She touched madame, and said, “See, I think he knows us.”Yes. For the last time the dim eyes turned and looked into theirs,—for the last time the little weak hand just moved as if to seek their clasp; the little voice, so strangely pathetic in its hoarse unchildlike accent, tried to reach Thérèse. For the last time. After that there was peace—the peace echoed by the choristers in the Cathedral—the peace that could never any more be broken. So best!
“No tear relieved the burden of her heart;Stunn’d with the heavy woe.”Thalaba.
“No tear relieved the burden of her heart;Stunn’d with the heavy woe.”Thalaba.
The days went on for Thérèse very much as they had done at the hospital. She had but one patient instead of many, it is true, but that one absorbed all her care. Octavie had been sent from the house; thefile, who was in the habit of coming for a certain number of hours daily, took fright and kept away. Nannon took her place, but she was not permitted to enter the sick-room, and madame was utterly incapable of those little feminine cares which nursing demands. So it all rested upon Thérèse, and even when the child was unconscious there seemed to be an increase of disquietude if she was not close at hand. She thought it a bad case, and longed for M. Deshoulières’ swift perception to be brought to bear upon it, and she could not help remembering Nannon’s irreverent simile when little Pinot came into the room, with his little attempt at imitation of the other’s manner. But madame broke out violently when she suggested that M. Deshoulières should be sent for. And so there was nothing for it but to remember his injunctions, and patiently to do what was needed for the poor little man, whose naughtinesses and obstinacies were forgotten now, or recalled only with shame at her own want of forbearance.
She wondered sometimes at madame’s strange ways. It was impossible to say in what mood the next hour would find her, fierce or remorseful, snappish or affectionate. Thérèse would have understood better had she known what coals of fire her unconscious hands were heaping and shovelling upon madame’s head just then. Nothing could have been so terrible to her as to see this girl whom she had injured sitting with the little hot hand in hers which the mother loved above all others in the world, and longed to tear away out of her clasp. Nothing. It almost maddened her.
At last one morning M. Pinot also told her that he would suggest her sending for M. Deshoulières. “It would be a satisfaction to himself,” he said. Thérèse, who knew what those words meant, turned a little pale, and looked tenderly down upon the little ugly brown face, now so pinched and wizened and changed, which kept slipping down from the pillow.
“M. Deshoulières shall not come,” answered madame, in her strange defiant tone. “The child is no worse.”
“Pardon, madame. It grieves me to say—”
“He is not worse, I tell you. The fever must run its course, and I have heard you say it is now only weakness.”
“Madame, at this stage—”
“He is not worse, I repeat again. I do not choose that M. Deshoulières should come.”
“In that case—Is Monsieur Roulleau aware of the extent of this illness, may I inquire of madame?”
“My husband comes to-day.”
“How has she brought him?” thought Thérèse, who knew something of the force of the little notary’s fears. She had brought him by not telling him of the illness at all. There was business waiting for him, and she had told him that after it had rained she should demand his return. In her next letter she said that it had rained, that the fever was diminishing, and that on such a day he was to be at Rue St. Servan. That was all. Nannon, who admitted him, wondered as much as any one. Madame come slowly down the stairs and signed to him to enter the little bureau.
“Zénobie, my angel,” he said, turning to meet her as she followed him. Something, it might have been a grey look on her face, arrested him, “What is the matter?” he said, faltering.
She was a woman, after all,—wicked, cruel, but a woman. Her sin was smiting her sorely; there were those terrible coals of fire scorching, consuming her. And he was her husband, the father of her children. “Oh, Ignace, Ignace,mon ami,” she cried, piteously, stretching out her arms for support, “our little Adolphe!”
“What then?”
“Ah, he suffers so!”
“Suffers! Is he ill?”
“The fever—”
“The fever!” he cried, springing back with one bound against the wall. “The fever is in this house and you let me come?”
She would be patient yet. It was the first shock. He had not realised her words. “He will not know you, Ignace; he is changed and so weak; it is terrible to see him.”
“Keep back!” he cried out, for she was drawing closer; “keep back! You have been nursing him, and now you speak to me! Let me go out into the air. Zénobie, how could you be so imprudent?”
“You will not see him—your son?”
“What is the good, what is the good? I can do nothing. See here, what a palpitation you have given me. Let me pass! I will go back to Tours at once. Let me pass! I shall be a dead man if I stay in the house with a fever.”
Her wrath blazed out. “Coward!” she said, standing between him and the door, and holding him immovable with a look of supreme scorn. “Coward! And while you stand there trembling, shaking, do you know who it is who is there by his side, nursing and tending him until I am driven mad? That girl. Do you know that while I hate her, it is all I can do sometimes not to fall on my knees before her and tell her all? Do you know that he cares for her more than for me,—me, his mother?”
“Zénobie, Zénobie, have patience! You will ruin us with your impetuosity.”
“Listen, then. You who have not so much as the bravery of a woman in your miserable little heart—it is your child whom that girl is nursing night and day. You have no courage—have you no pity? Do you, remembering who she is, and what she is doing,—do you refuse to let her know that this man, her lover, is alive,—that you could lay your hand upon him, and bring him back to her? Do you refuse that? She may die, remember, die of nursing your child!”
“Not so loud, not so loud,” said the little man uneasily. “If she were to die, we should lose the money, it is true, but it might be the safest. There would be fewer complications.”
She turned from him with a look of unutterable horror. In his cowardice, and in his cruelty, he had fallen far below even her measure of wrongdoing. With a pale scared face, he was watching the door with the hope of escape, but she, like an avenging fury, stood between it and him.
“Let us go into the street,” he said feebly. “I have always heard there is less danger in the open air. You will not?N’importe. Do not let me keep you, my Zénobie. Can I convey any message to your mother?”
She faced him again. “If he dies!”
“He will not die—no, no, he will not die, believe me. You are a little nervous, that is all. Oh, he will not die; he has an excellent constitution—Holy Virgin, what is that!”
It was M. Deshoulières knocking sharply at the door. Madame Roulleau, rigid and defiant again, opened it; the little notary shrank further into the corner; the doctor entered hastily.
“Mademoiselle Thérèse?” he said, looking round. “Ah, madame, may I ask you to request her to descend at once. I bring news, or, believe me, I would not incommode you at such a time.”
“What news, monsieur?” asked madame, still erect.
“Monsieur Saint-Martin has arrived.”
Her head sank, she went out of the room and up the stairs slowly. There was a tempest in her heart when she opened the door of the sick-room. It was all very solemn and quiet, solemn with the foreshadowing of that quietness which is infinite. The child lay on the little white bed, Thérèse knelt by its side, thepersienneswere half closed, one quivering ray of sunlight touched the girl’s head, the sweet young face was full of tender sorrow. For a moment she stood speechless, watching; the next Thérèse heard a sharp keen voice in her ear:—
“Why do you look like that, you! He is mine, I will not have you take away his love. And I have hated you and done you all the harm I could—do you hear?”
“Hush, hush, madame,” said Thérèse softly. She looked at her, and knew that this woman in her strange excitement was speaking truth; at another time she might have been angry at the confession, but for weeks past she had been walking on the borders of that land where wrath and bitterness are hushed. She lifted her hand and pointed to the little face on the pillow. Madame dared not speak, she fell on her knees and trembled. Thérèse gently drew back thepersiennes; a sweet cool breeze came into the room, the plains were all steeped in a kind of subdued sunshine, silvery, and broken with clouds. There were long shadows on the roofs and gables, birds singing in the gardens of the Evêché; presently the murmur of a distant chant came swinging up from the Cathedral, where all the windows were open. No service was going on, but the choristers were practising arequiem, very sad and sweet, yet now and then breaking into triumphant chorus. Thérèse fancied she caught the words,—“requiem, dona eis requiem,” shrill, clear, boyish voices answering one another. Rest was very near one of the three in that room. She touched madame, and said, “See, I think he knows us.”
Yes. For the last time the dim eyes turned and looked into theirs,—for the last time the little weak hand just moved as if to seek their clasp; the little voice, so strangely pathetic in its hoarse unchildlike accent, tried to reach Thérèse. For the last time. After that there was peace—the peace echoed by the choristers in the Cathedral—the peace that could never any more be broken. So best!
Chapter Seventeen.“One friend in that path shall beTo secure my steps from wrong;One to count night day for me,Patient through the watches long,Serving most with none to see.”R. Browning.M. Deshoulières, who had not a moment to spare, paced up and down the bureau in a fever of impatience. M. Roulleau had slipped out directly his wife left the room: the doctor was too preoccupied to notice him at all, or he must have been struck with the terror in his face.“Does monsieur say that M. Saint-Martin is actually in Charville?” he asked in a trembling voice, with his hand on the door.“No. He is at Maury. There is barely time to meet the train. Will you hasten mademoiselle?”And then he began to pace up and down with his watch in his hand. Nobody came. He opened the door, it was all silent. With a sigh—was it relief or disappointment?—he ran down the steps and hastened to the station. People who passed him said that M. Deshoulières was—giving up at last; there was a worn dragged look on his face, like that of a man under the first touch of illness. Poor man! There were two or three conflicting currents in his heart, such as wear lines before they have been running very long. An hour of their work will do more than a few years of age, who is but a slow labourer after all. Fabien was come—this man of whose love he had never known until he had given that away which now he could never more take back. Fabien had come, and there would be a marriage; and Thérèse would be carried away, and he—? Well, he should remain in Charville, go through that daily round so like, and yet so unlike, itself; worry the Préfet, be victimised by Veuve Angelin—it was not very interesting when he looked at it in this downright, colourless fashion, but still it was there; so far as a future could be foretold, this was the future to which he had to look forward. Most people have once or twice in their lives gone through that desolate time when before them stretches out a grey, cheerless, sunless prospect, a long dusty road, as it were, along which there must be a solitary plodding. Until we have tried it ourselves we cannot believe that, after all, the first view is the saddest part of it; that as we go along we come to hidden banks, in which starry flowers are blossoming—walls, painted with delicate bright lichen—tiny wayside streams—crystals in the dust—all manner of sweet surprises, and evermore above them all the eternal blue of heaven. Afterwards, when we are in the midst of them, we wonder how the dreary road has become so beautiful; but beforehand it appals us. Perhaps life never looked so sad to Max Deshoulières as in that little journey from Charville to Maury.When he reached the station the sun was setting. From out of a yellow western sky, a great dusky red grey vapour stretched upwards half across the heavens, and on this again lay purple horizontal bands of cloud. The little town was within a stone’s throw of the station; a cluster of cold-looking ugly houses, and on an eminence a church, with a quaint tower running up between its low apse and the nave. M. Deshoulières made straight for the church, skirted it, and found himself in front of a bran-new hotel, having a narrow façade, a little court, and stiff evergreens ranged round in bright green tubs. “M. Saint-Martin? Certainly. Would monsieur have the goodness to pass this way?”After all, it was rather ludicrous to come in this prosaic fashion upon the man whose absence had given rise to so many speculations. Max smiled to himself—a little sad smile with an aching heart—as he followed the polite waiter upstairs through a passage, into a room where two gentlemen rose to receive him. One he knew at once—the curé of Ardron. The other—Monsieur Fabien Saint-Martin.For the first moment I doubt whether he understood much of what was passing; he was looking at Fabien. A young man—for that he was prepared, but somehow it forced itself upon him strangely—tall, slight, with quick, dark eyes, and an expression that did not please him about the mouth and jaw. This was his first, swift impression; his next was that there was a marked restraint and stiffness about the greeting he received. The young man made no attempt to speak, after a ceremonious bow; the curé, who had been writing, resumed his seat at the table. Max said, with a slight flush on his cheek, and with another bow,—“Permit me to offer you my very sincere congratulations on your return, Monsieur Saint-Martin. It is an event, the delay of which has discomposed us considerably.”Alas, poor Max! How much, only he knew.“I should have been glad myself to have returned before,” said M. Fabien, speaking in an abrupt tone. “Parbleu, M. Deshoulières, inheritances do not fall from the skies in such a shower that this one should be a matter of indifference to me.”“That I can suppose.”“Nevertheless, it appears that I am not greatly indebted to you for your endeavours to make it known,” continued the young man, with a disagreeable laugh. “It is well, perhaps, monsieur, that other friends have taken a deeper interest in the matter.”“No one, monsieur, can have had so deep an interest in the matter as myself,” said Max, restraining himself; but with a swift flash from his eyes.M. le Curé, with his very determined opinions on the subject, looking up from his writing at that moment, could not help feeling a disagreeable sense of contrast in the two—M. Deshoulières standing there, erect and massive, with his beautiful head, and his calm, indignant eyes—Fabien pale, angry, restless.“That I can believe—in one sense,” said the young man, sharply.M. le Curé thought it was time to interfere. “Permit me to offer you a chair,” he said, rising and putting forward his own.“I thank you,” answered Max, quietly, “but it appears to me that I shall prefer standing until I can gather the drift of M. Saint-Martin’s strange remarks. We will come to the point at once if you please. Am I to understand that you accuse me of having taken no steps towards informing you of M. Moreau’s death and bequest? You are silent, monsieur. I conclude, then, that such is your accusation. Permit me to remark, in reply, that the two only direct means of communication in my power—advertisements and the assistance of the police—were so rigidly forbidden by M. Moreau, that their employment would have deprived you of any benefit whatever under the will, beyond a legacy of 40,000 francs. It was an apparently unaccountable condition—that is to say, it appeared unaccountable to me at the time—but I am under the impression that I mentioned it to M. le Curé at my first interview? At all events it matters little. The will itself can be placed in M. Saint-Martin’s hands to-morrow.”He paused. There was an uncomfortable silence. Then the curé said coldly,—“Certainly; I am aware that you mentioned an extraordinary provision to that effect.”“But,” broke in Fabien with a sneer, “I presume the provisions were scarcely extended to the point of obliging M. Deshoulières to ignore any indirect information that might be supplied to him on the subject, or of declining to be enlightened by letters from myself? Possibly I am mistaken. A will that could do so much may have had the power of enforcing blindness and deafness upon its executor.”Max, stern, quiet, and self-possessed, answered at once,—“M. Saint-Martin, I demand an explanation, of words which are to me wholly unintelligible.”“M. Deshoulières, I demand, on my part, firstly, an explanation of your non-appearance at the Lion d’Or at Pont-huine?”“So? that is easily given, monsieur. The sudden illness of one of my patients prevented it. In my stead I sent the notary who drew up Monsieur Moreau’s will, and was equally with myself acquainted with its particulars. M. Roulleau spent the afternoon at Pont-huine. As no person appeared, he returned to Charville with the belief that we had been made the victims of a jest.”M. Fabien laughed. “This, I think, you can disprove,” he said, turning to the curé.“It was no jest, monsieur,” said the curé, sternly. “You will permit me to remark that all I heard, even from your own lips, of Monsieur Moreau’s last illness, and the extraordinary terms of his will, coupled with the amazing fact of his having chosen asdépositairea man wholly unknown to him until the morning of his death, appeared to me so unaccountable, not to say suspicious, that I felt it my duty to act in some degree on my own responsibility. I made private inquiries among those whom I considered likely to aid me, and immediately that I succeeded in obtaining a slight clew which it appeared to me might lead to the desired point, I thought it desirable—yes, monsieur, I avow it—to test the sincerity of your professions, by appointing a meeting at the Lion d’Or. Permit me to state that from having myself waited there the whole day in vain, I am in a condition to affirm that no notice was taken of my communication.”“Allow me, then, in return, to say that you behaved in an indefensible manner, M. le Curé,” replied M. Deshoulières, promptly. “You had no right to indulge in anonymous communications. Nevertheless, I have already informed you of what was done. You can apply to M. Roulleau. Have you any thing more to remark?”The curé, who was suspicious but not irritable, glancing at him again, could not repress another feeling of admiration. Either the man was a magnificent deceiver or—He was so steadfast, so noble-looking, so immeasurably above the other. M. le Curé fidgeted, and did not know what to think. Fabien answered the question hotly.“A great deal more. During the last year I have twice written to my uncle, at Château Ardron. What has become of these letters?”“I cannot answer you,” said Max, in some surprise. “I cannot answer you that question. Since the first month only a few unimportant letters have come to me, and they were brought by M. Roulleau, to whom they have been forwarded by some mistake.”“We have questioned old Mathieu at Ardron,” the curé said dryly; “he remembers the foreign letters, and will swear to having forwarded them. As to the mistake, he told us that he had your directions to send all letters to M. Roulleau, numéro 8, Rue St. Servan, Charville.”M. Deshoulières’ face, for the first time, looked troubled. “There is something strange in this which I do not understand,” he said slowly. Fabien interrupted him with his insulting laugh.“There is a great deal, let me assure you, monsieur, which we do not understand—”Max, in his turn, stopped him. “That will do, Monsieur Saint-Martin. I can pardon much to a person in your position, but my forbearance has its limits. I shall question M. Roulleau on the points you have named. It is unnecessary to say more to-night. May I ask what hour you will appoint for meeting me in Charville to-morrow, when the will can be read, and the papers delivered into your keeping?”“Charville, monsieur? On my word, were I to meet you in Charville the complications might be increased by a second deathbed scene. A thousand thanks, but I must decline your invitation to that charming fever-hole.”“In that case, monsieur, I regret to state that my unwished-for trust cannot be brought to an end so quickly as I should desire. The wording of the will requires your presence in Charville.”“More extraordinary provisions!” said the young man, with a shrug of annoyance. The curé interrupted him contemptuously.“It is not the part of a brave man to fear shadows,” he said. “M. Deshoulières, will twelve o’clock be agreeable to you?”Max bowed.“At your own house?”“I think not. I would suggest the Cygne.”“Good. Before you go, may I trouble you with one question?” said the curé, whose suspicions and whose impressions were pulling him different ways.“Certainly.”“At the beginning of this interview you remarked upon that condition of M. Moreau’s will which forbade the advertisement of the bequest to his nephew, that it appeared unaccountable to you at the time. I gather from that, monsieur, that a solution has since presented itself to you. If I am not mistaken, may I inquire the nature of this solution?”Ah, Thérèse, waiting and watching, not knowing yet who was so near! Ah, faithful heart, that never faltered in its purpose, nor suffered its own pain to stand before her happiness! Ah, true, patient, noble love, that gave his face the glory that it wore!“Monsieur Saint-Martin,” he said, turning from the curé, and speaking to the young man, “I believe that your uncle, in spite of his words, loved you above all others. I believe he regretted the harshness which had separated you and Mademoiselle Veuillot, and desired in a certain manner to atone for it. He may have thought that a voluntary appeal on your part would be a test of the sincerity of your attachment. At all events, it appears to me that the provisions of his will, which were intended to keep Mademoiselle Veuillot in Charville, and to oblige you to receive your inheritance in the same town, could tend to no other purpose.”“Ah, by the way, Thérèse!” said Fabien, lightly. “Is Thérèse in Charville?”“You will see her to-morrow,” M. Deshoulières said gravely. Was this the first thought of her who had been left so desolate? He bowed and went away quickly, not daring to trust himself longer. Fabien half followed him, and then came back and flung himself on a sofa.“I don’t know that we should have let him go, after all,” he said, irresolutely.“I hardly think you would have had much power to prevent him,” remarked the curé, with a grim smile, coming from the window, and ringing the bell for lights. He could not help despising the young man with his weak passionate nature, and yet he tried to keep up a conviction that he had been wronged.“And so Thérèse is here,” said Fabien. He laughed a little to himself, and curled his moustache. “She had a spirit, had Thérèse, and her eyes were something to remember.Parbleu, though, a visit to that fever-hole is not too agreeable to contemplate.”“Is Mademoiselle Veuillot yourfiancée?” asked the curé, severely.Fabien laughed again. “Fiancée? No,mon père, not altogether. We shall see.”“It is possible that her interests also may have suffered.”“Ah—yes—it is possible. But my uncle had not too great a love for Thérèse. I am curious to know how he has provided for her.”“Yet I have understood that your disagreement with your uncle originated in your attachment for Mademoiselle Veuillot,” said the curé, facing round upon him sharply.“Precisely,” answered Fabien, airily. “But then—what will you?—I was young, foolish—the truth was that I could not endure my old uncle’srégimein the office. I heard of an opening in Rio Janeiro, and I worked my way out. On the voyage I wished myself back a hundred times, I promise you, but once there, somehow or other, I found myself on my feet—fortune favoured me. I was getting weary of it, though, and this news came to me just in time through M. l’Abbé, but it is not a bad place after all. One sees the world.”And so M. Fabien rattled on, while the curé looked at him and listened with a growing discontent. Before he went to bed, he found it necessary to repeat to himself all the evidence he had gathered against M. Deshoulières. There was no denying it; things bore a very dark appearance. A suspicious trust; an appointment said to have been kept in the face of his own knowledge to the contrary; letters suppressed; rumours that all was not right; a letter from M. l’Abbé at the Evêché: “M. Deshoulières is a man well spoken of, but my own opinion of him does not coincide with that of the world.” A letter from the Préfet: “I consider this doctor a pestilent, discontented individual, always trying to advance his own schemes. In effect, I doubt him.”“M. le Préfet would not have spoken without reason,” said M. le Curé to himself assuringly, as he folded up the letter. “After all, there are cases in the world when a man’s face does not agree with his actions.”M. Deshoulières went sadly home that night. It was not of his own grey future that he was thinking, nor of the accusations that had been heaped upon him so unexpectedly—he almost smiled as he recalled them. He was thinking of Thérèse and of Fabien. Was this man to whom her heart had gone out, one who would keep it, and treasure it, and cherish it? There was a deep intolerable pain in the question that would come surging up in spite of his efforts to still it. The stars shone out, and a fresh rustling breeze was swaying the stiff sycamores, lights were gleaming from the old houses, the vines on the balconies had changed into dusky masses. The shadowy old sounds and sights were very familiar and sweet to poor Max, but this night they seemed to have lost their power.
“One friend in that path shall beTo secure my steps from wrong;One to count night day for me,Patient through the watches long,Serving most with none to see.”R. Browning.
“One friend in that path shall beTo secure my steps from wrong;One to count night day for me,Patient through the watches long,Serving most with none to see.”R. Browning.
M. Deshoulières, who had not a moment to spare, paced up and down the bureau in a fever of impatience. M. Roulleau had slipped out directly his wife left the room: the doctor was too preoccupied to notice him at all, or he must have been struck with the terror in his face.
“Does monsieur say that M. Saint-Martin is actually in Charville?” he asked in a trembling voice, with his hand on the door.
“No. He is at Maury. There is barely time to meet the train. Will you hasten mademoiselle?”
And then he began to pace up and down with his watch in his hand. Nobody came. He opened the door, it was all silent. With a sigh—was it relief or disappointment?—he ran down the steps and hastened to the station. People who passed him said that M. Deshoulières was—giving up at last; there was a worn dragged look on his face, like that of a man under the first touch of illness. Poor man! There were two or three conflicting currents in his heart, such as wear lines before they have been running very long. An hour of their work will do more than a few years of age, who is but a slow labourer after all. Fabien was come—this man of whose love he had never known until he had given that away which now he could never more take back. Fabien had come, and there would be a marriage; and Thérèse would be carried away, and he—? Well, he should remain in Charville, go through that daily round so like, and yet so unlike, itself; worry the Préfet, be victimised by Veuve Angelin—it was not very interesting when he looked at it in this downright, colourless fashion, but still it was there; so far as a future could be foretold, this was the future to which he had to look forward. Most people have once or twice in their lives gone through that desolate time when before them stretches out a grey, cheerless, sunless prospect, a long dusty road, as it were, along which there must be a solitary plodding. Until we have tried it ourselves we cannot believe that, after all, the first view is the saddest part of it; that as we go along we come to hidden banks, in which starry flowers are blossoming—walls, painted with delicate bright lichen—tiny wayside streams—crystals in the dust—all manner of sweet surprises, and evermore above them all the eternal blue of heaven. Afterwards, when we are in the midst of them, we wonder how the dreary road has become so beautiful; but beforehand it appals us. Perhaps life never looked so sad to Max Deshoulières as in that little journey from Charville to Maury.
When he reached the station the sun was setting. From out of a yellow western sky, a great dusky red grey vapour stretched upwards half across the heavens, and on this again lay purple horizontal bands of cloud. The little town was within a stone’s throw of the station; a cluster of cold-looking ugly houses, and on an eminence a church, with a quaint tower running up between its low apse and the nave. M. Deshoulières made straight for the church, skirted it, and found himself in front of a bran-new hotel, having a narrow façade, a little court, and stiff evergreens ranged round in bright green tubs. “M. Saint-Martin? Certainly. Would monsieur have the goodness to pass this way?”
After all, it was rather ludicrous to come in this prosaic fashion upon the man whose absence had given rise to so many speculations. Max smiled to himself—a little sad smile with an aching heart—as he followed the polite waiter upstairs through a passage, into a room where two gentlemen rose to receive him. One he knew at once—the curé of Ardron. The other—Monsieur Fabien Saint-Martin.
For the first moment I doubt whether he understood much of what was passing; he was looking at Fabien. A young man—for that he was prepared, but somehow it forced itself upon him strangely—tall, slight, with quick, dark eyes, and an expression that did not please him about the mouth and jaw. This was his first, swift impression; his next was that there was a marked restraint and stiffness about the greeting he received. The young man made no attempt to speak, after a ceremonious bow; the curé, who had been writing, resumed his seat at the table. Max said, with a slight flush on his cheek, and with another bow,—
“Permit me to offer you my very sincere congratulations on your return, Monsieur Saint-Martin. It is an event, the delay of which has discomposed us considerably.”
Alas, poor Max! How much, only he knew.
“I should have been glad myself to have returned before,” said M. Fabien, speaking in an abrupt tone. “Parbleu, M. Deshoulières, inheritances do not fall from the skies in such a shower that this one should be a matter of indifference to me.”
“That I can suppose.”
“Nevertheless, it appears that I am not greatly indebted to you for your endeavours to make it known,” continued the young man, with a disagreeable laugh. “It is well, perhaps, monsieur, that other friends have taken a deeper interest in the matter.”
“No one, monsieur, can have had so deep an interest in the matter as myself,” said Max, restraining himself; but with a swift flash from his eyes.
M. le Curé, with his very determined opinions on the subject, looking up from his writing at that moment, could not help feeling a disagreeable sense of contrast in the two—M. Deshoulières standing there, erect and massive, with his beautiful head, and his calm, indignant eyes—Fabien pale, angry, restless.
“That I can believe—in one sense,” said the young man, sharply.
M. le Curé thought it was time to interfere. “Permit me to offer you a chair,” he said, rising and putting forward his own.
“I thank you,” answered Max, quietly, “but it appears to me that I shall prefer standing until I can gather the drift of M. Saint-Martin’s strange remarks. We will come to the point at once if you please. Am I to understand that you accuse me of having taken no steps towards informing you of M. Moreau’s death and bequest? You are silent, monsieur. I conclude, then, that such is your accusation. Permit me to remark, in reply, that the two only direct means of communication in my power—advertisements and the assistance of the police—were so rigidly forbidden by M. Moreau, that their employment would have deprived you of any benefit whatever under the will, beyond a legacy of 40,000 francs. It was an apparently unaccountable condition—that is to say, it appeared unaccountable to me at the time—but I am under the impression that I mentioned it to M. le Curé at my first interview? At all events it matters little. The will itself can be placed in M. Saint-Martin’s hands to-morrow.”
He paused. There was an uncomfortable silence. Then the curé said coldly,—
“Certainly; I am aware that you mentioned an extraordinary provision to that effect.”
“But,” broke in Fabien with a sneer, “I presume the provisions were scarcely extended to the point of obliging M. Deshoulières to ignore any indirect information that might be supplied to him on the subject, or of declining to be enlightened by letters from myself? Possibly I am mistaken. A will that could do so much may have had the power of enforcing blindness and deafness upon its executor.”
Max, stern, quiet, and self-possessed, answered at once,—
“M. Saint-Martin, I demand an explanation, of words which are to me wholly unintelligible.”
“M. Deshoulières, I demand, on my part, firstly, an explanation of your non-appearance at the Lion d’Or at Pont-huine?”
“So? that is easily given, monsieur. The sudden illness of one of my patients prevented it. In my stead I sent the notary who drew up Monsieur Moreau’s will, and was equally with myself acquainted with its particulars. M. Roulleau spent the afternoon at Pont-huine. As no person appeared, he returned to Charville with the belief that we had been made the victims of a jest.”
M. Fabien laughed. “This, I think, you can disprove,” he said, turning to the curé.
“It was no jest, monsieur,” said the curé, sternly. “You will permit me to remark that all I heard, even from your own lips, of Monsieur Moreau’s last illness, and the extraordinary terms of his will, coupled with the amazing fact of his having chosen asdépositairea man wholly unknown to him until the morning of his death, appeared to me so unaccountable, not to say suspicious, that I felt it my duty to act in some degree on my own responsibility. I made private inquiries among those whom I considered likely to aid me, and immediately that I succeeded in obtaining a slight clew which it appeared to me might lead to the desired point, I thought it desirable—yes, monsieur, I avow it—to test the sincerity of your professions, by appointing a meeting at the Lion d’Or. Permit me to state that from having myself waited there the whole day in vain, I am in a condition to affirm that no notice was taken of my communication.”
“Allow me, then, in return, to say that you behaved in an indefensible manner, M. le Curé,” replied M. Deshoulières, promptly. “You had no right to indulge in anonymous communications. Nevertheless, I have already informed you of what was done. You can apply to M. Roulleau. Have you any thing more to remark?”
The curé, who was suspicious but not irritable, glancing at him again, could not repress another feeling of admiration. Either the man was a magnificent deceiver or—He was so steadfast, so noble-looking, so immeasurably above the other. M. le Curé fidgeted, and did not know what to think. Fabien answered the question hotly.
“A great deal more. During the last year I have twice written to my uncle, at Château Ardron. What has become of these letters?”
“I cannot answer you,” said Max, in some surprise. “I cannot answer you that question. Since the first month only a few unimportant letters have come to me, and they were brought by M. Roulleau, to whom they have been forwarded by some mistake.”
“We have questioned old Mathieu at Ardron,” the curé said dryly; “he remembers the foreign letters, and will swear to having forwarded them. As to the mistake, he told us that he had your directions to send all letters to M. Roulleau, numéro 8, Rue St. Servan, Charville.”
M. Deshoulières’ face, for the first time, looked troubled. “There is something strange in this which I do not understand,” he said slowly. Fabien interrupted him with his insulting laugh.
“There is a great deal, let me assure you, monsieur, which we do not understand—”
Max, in his turn, stopped him. “That will do, Monsieur Saint-Martin. I can pardon much to a person in your position, but my forbearance has its limits. I shall question M. Roulleau on the points you have named. It is unnecessary to say more to-night. May I ask what hour you will appoint for meeting me in Charville to-morrow, when the will can be read, and the papers delivered into your keeping?”
“Charville, monsieur? On my word, were I to meet you in Charville the complications might be increased by a second deathbed scene. A thousand thanks, but I must decline your invitation to that charming fever-hole.”
“In that case, monsieur, I regret to state that my unwished-for trust cannot be brought to an end so quickly as I should desire. The wording of the will requires your presence in Charville.”
“More extraordinary provisions!” said the young man, with a shrug of annoyance. The curé interrupted him contemptuously.
“It is not the part of a brave man to fear shadows,” he said. “M. Deshoulières, will twelve o’clock be agreeable to you?”
Max bowed.
“At your own house?”
“I think not. I would suggest the Cygne.”
“Good. Before you go, may I trouble you with one question?” said the curé, whose suspicions and whose impressions were pulling him different ways.
“Certainly.”
“At the beginning of this interview you remarked upon that condition of M. Moreau’s will which forbade the advertisement of the bequest to his nephew, that it appeared unaccountable to you at the time. I gather from that, monsieur, that a solution has since presented itself to you. If I am not mistaken, may I inquire the nature of this solution?”
Ah, Thérèse, waiting and watching, not knowing yet who was so near! Ah, faithful heart, that never faltered in its purpose, nor suffered its own pain to stand before her happiness! Ah, true, patient, noble love, that gave his face the glory that it wore!
“Monsieur Saint-Martin,” he said, turning from the curé, and speaking to the young man, “I believe that your uncle, in spite of his words, loved you above all others. I believe he regretted the harshness which had separated you and Mademoiselle Veuillot, and desired in a certain manner to atone for it. He may have thought that a voluntary appeal on your part would be a test of the sincerity of your attachment. At all events, it appears to me that the provisions of his will, which were intended to keep Mademoiselle Veuillot in Charville, and to oblige you to receive your inheritance in the same town, could tend to no other purpose.”
“Ah, by the way, Thérèse!” said Fabien, lightly. “Is Thérèse in Charville?”
“You will see her to-morrow,” M. Deshoulières said gravely. Was this the first thought of her who had been left so desolate? He bowed and went away quickly, not daring to trust himself longer. Fabien half followed him, and then came back and flung himself on a sofa.
“I don’t know that we should have let him go, after all,” he said, irresolutely.
“I hardly think you would have had much power to prevent him,” remarked the curé, with a grim smile, coming from the window, and ringing the bell for lights. He could not help despising the young man with his weak passionate nature, and yet he tried to keep up a conviction that he had been wronged.
“And so Thérèse is here,” said Fabien. He laughed a little to himself, and curled his moustache. “She had a spirit, had Thérèse, and her eyes were something to remember.Parbleu, though, a visit to that fever-hole is not too agreeable to contemplate.”
“Is Mademoiselle Veuillot yourfiancée?” asked the curé, severely.
Fabien laughed again. “Fiancée? No,mon père, not altogether. We shall see.”
“It is possible that her interests also may have suffered.”
“Ah—yes—it is possible. But my uncle had not too great a love for Thérèse. I am curious to know how he has provided for her.”
“Yet I have understood that your disagreement with your uncle originated in your attachment for Mademoiselle Veuillot,” said the curé, facing round upon him sharply.
“Precisely,” answered Fabien, airily. “But then—what will you?—I was young, foolish—the truth was that I could not endure my old uncle’srégimein the office. I heard of an opening in Rio Janeiro, and I worked my way out. On the voyage I wished myself back a hundred times, I promise you, but once there, somehow or other, I found myself on my feet—fortune favoured me. I was getting weary of it, though, and this news came to me just in time through M. l’Abbé, but it is not a bad place after all. One sees the world.”
And so M. Fabien rattled on, while the curé looked at him and listened with a growing discontent. Before he went to bed, he found it necessary to repeat to himself all the evidence he had gathered against M. Deshoulières. There was no denying it; things bore a very dark appearance. A suspicious trust; an appointment said to have been kept in the face of his own knowledge to the contrary; letters suppressed; rumours that all was not right; a letter from M. l’Abbé at the Evêché: “M. Deshoulières is a man well spoken of, but my own opinion of him does not coincide with that of the world.” A letter from the Préfet: “I consider this doctor a pestilent, discontented individual, always trying to advance his own schemes. In effect, I doubt him.”
“M. le Préfet would not have spoken without reason,” said M. le Curé to himself assuringly, as he folded up the letter. “After all, there are cases in the world when a man’s face does not agree with his actions.”
M. Deshoulières went sadly home that night. It was not of his own grey future that he was thinking, nor of the accusations that had been heaped upon him so unexpectedly—he almost smiled as he recalled them. He was thinking of Thérèse and of Fabien. Was this man to whom her heart had gone out, one who would keep it, and treasure it, and cherish it? There was a deep intolerable pain in the question that would come surging up in spite of his efforts to still it. The stars shone out, and a fresh rustling breeze was swaying the stiff sycamores, lights were gleaming from the old houses, the vines on the balconies had changed into dusky masses. The shadowy old sounds and sights were very familiar and sweet to poor Max, but this night they seemed to have lost their power.
Chapter Eighteen.“Aimer sans Amour est amer.”Thérèse was waiting for M. Deshoulières the next morning when he went to Rue St. Servan. He could not tell how she looked; she was eager, troubled, doubtful, all at once. He did not yet know what had happened, but he guessed directly. “Ah, that poor madame!” she said shuddering. “It is too terrible—” and then she stopped.He saw that she had been overwrought. All that night Madame Roulleau had lain on the floor by the child’s bed, in a fierce agony of despair, not weeping, but writhing. Once she had looked up with dry, burning eyes, and said to Thérèse hoarsely, “Your lover is come. Do you remember?hetold you so once, and I beat him for it. Do you hear that, all of you? I told a lie, and I beat my little Adolphe.” There was something so terrible in her voice and in her face, that Thérèse and Nannon shrank. And this was all that she knew of Fabien. The poor child, in spite of her bravery, could hardly endure these different emotions that were tearing at her heart. Nothing at the hospital had been so dreadful to witness as the sight of that hard, insupportable agony. And in the midst of it she had been told that Fabien was come.“What is it all?” she said, putting out her hand to Max, with an appealing glance that went to his heart. He answered it at once with a kind smile.“There is good news for you. M. Saint-Martin has come at last.”“So it is true!” Her face changed suddenly, her eyes danced. “I could not believe it; but if you say so, I know it is true.”Yes, those grave blue eyes were true as truth itself. There was a burden to be borne by one, perhaps by both of them, and his work should be to lighten hers.“You may believe it, indeed. I have seen him—”“Seen him!” Such gladness in her face!—such gladness in her voice!“And you shall meet him to-day at the Cygne.”Something made her put out her hand to him again. “What do I not owe you!” she said, gratefully.“For what?” he said with a smile. “I was neither the letter nor the ship that brought him back.Allons, it appears to me it is monsieur the curé of Ardron whom you will have to thank the most.”She shook her head without answering. She was not deceived. If ever friend was faithful to his friendship, it was this friend. Neither of them spoke for a moment, then Thérèse said slowly,—“I shall understand every thing better by and by, I think. I fancy there are things which neither of us understand as yet. That poor woman—!” she added, sighing.“So the poor little one is dead!”“It is not that only—I mean that is not the worst,” she said in answer to his look. “Her sorrow is so dreadful to see. I have asked her to hear Père Gaspard, but she will not let him come into the room. I wonder whether Sister Gabrielle could do any thing! I wonder what it is! She says such terrible things.”M. Deshoulières was too generous-hearted to suspect readily, but that night he had been perplexed by thoughts of little Roulleau, suggested in the interview at Maury.“I must see her husband,” he said. “Is he with her, or shall I find him in the bureau?”“Did you not know?” asked Thérèse in surprise. “He is not here. He went away again at once when he heard of the fever. The little coward!”“Went away!”“But yes, indeed. To Tours, she supposes. I think that is one of the things that has half killed her.”M. Deshoulières’ face became more grave. This flight of the little notary added considerably to the difficulties of his position. He remembered also that Ignace had heard his tidings of M. Saint-Martin’s arrival. Thérèse, who saw this cloud, asked at once, “What is it?”“I do not like his absence at this time, and I want the papers connected with M. Moreau’s will. Will you wait here for a moment while I speak to the clerk?”He came back again presently, shaking his head. “We can go no further than the outside of the chest; Madame Roulleau has the keys, and I am afraid you must make an effort to get them. It is really a matter of extreme importance, or I would not ask you to undertake such a task,” he added abruptly.Thérèse turned a little pale. “Does it not seem cruel?”“I cannot help it. It is necessary. Would you rather that I saw her?”“No, no. I will try, but I dread it.”She was absent so long that he had risen to follow her, when she came into the room again, white and trembling. “No, I have done nothing,” she said, in answer to his look. “She only rocks herself backwards and forwards on the ground. She never looked up—I do not know whether she heard me; but yet she must have, for when I came away at last, I heard her spring up and bolt the door. Nannon is out, and there she is quite alone. It cannot matter so greatly. Fabien can wait for his papers another day—” A shade that unconsciously crossed his face made her cry out quickly, “They will trust you unreservedly!”“Scarcely that, perhaps,” he said, with a smile and a sigh. “Well, we must wait; this fit may possibly pass off. I will go and ask Sister Gabrielle to come here. Whether that poor woman will see her or not, she will be some one in the house, for you must take Nannon with you to the Cygne soon after twelve. You understand that it is on account of the fever that I do not bring M. Saint-Martin here?”“Yes, yes. But ought I to see him? You are sure there is no danger?” she asked piteously.“Not with the usual precautions. Can I help you in any way?”“No, thank you. Père Gaspard has been very kind.”Thérèse never knew how those hours passed. She tried to go into the room where madame lay in her awful depth of despair, but the door was locked, and Thérèse, who could not keep down the well of joy that seemed to come dancing up from her heart, felt indeed as if this happiness separated them more than any bolts. She called herself cruel, inhuman; she thought of little Adolphe, the weariness, the fever, the pain; but even while her tears fell, those glad visions would intrude themselves. When we are quite young we are so rigorous over our sorrows that we are impatient of comfort; it is in after life that we learn to refuse no consolations. She scolded herself, and then when Sister Gabrielle came, fell into her arms, and laughed and cried together. Sister Gabrielle, who had a way of soothing people, listened quietly, and seemed to lift that little burden of self-reproach from her heart. She dressed her, and called Nannon, and stood on the top of the steps watching the two go away together down the street, and under the dark archway. Charville had broken out into its cheerfulness again; the fever was dying away, only here and there was still the sharp anguish of recent loss like Madame Roulleau’s. Thérèse went off with a buoyant step into the sunshine, and the merry jangle of voices. Sister Gabrielle turned back into the house, took her knitting, and sat patiently on the stairs outside the room, where the mother had shut herself in with her despair.When Thérèse reached the Cygne, something of her brightness had fled. She hung back with a little dread; it was Nannon who pushed forward, and made Toinette show them the room which M. Deshoulières had set apart for them.“There is no one there; see, mademoiselle!” she said, reconnoitring.It had a balcony, which looked over the sycamore-trees at the lovely spires of the Cathedral. Nannon, with quick tact, went out there, and sat humming a little chanson, very cracked and discordant, but to her full of memories of her girlhood. Those songs of old age are the most pathetic songs of all. Thérèse in the room waited with a hundred hopes and fears in her heart. It was three years since she had seen Fabien, and now that he was near she began to tremble.Meanwhile, in another room of the hotel, a stormy discussion was taking place. It was necessary for M. Deshoulières to greet the two gentlemen with the information that the notary had left Charville unexpectedly, and that it was not in his power to produce the will. M. Saint-Martin broke out in passionate terms at once.“So, monsieur, and this is the end! Do not suppose that I have come here to be trifled with.”“M. Deshoulières must be aware,” interrupted the curé in his frigid tones, “that he stands in a strange position.”“M. le Curé, I am perfectly aware. M. Saint-Martin has—not a right, but a certain amount of excuse for what would otherwise be unpardonable expressions. But when I have said this, I have said all. Events have conspired to bring about this false position, and a very short time will, I suppose, set it right. Meanwhile, I claim the courtesy and the trust which is due from one gentleman to another.”“From one gentleman!—yes,” sneered Fabien. “Pardon, monsieur; I was not aware that you considered yourself beyond that pale.”Fabien, who was white with rage, would have answered fiercely, but the curé again interfered.“Messieurs, the interests of both require something more than a battle of words.”“You are right,” said Max, turning frankly towards him. “I regret what I said. The delay is just as vexatious to me as to you—more so, in fact, since it seems to create suspicions which are certainly not agreeable for me to hear—but we had better meet it like reasonable beings. It is possible that I can obtain the keys from Madame Roulleau to-morrow—at all events learn where her husband is, and telegraph for him at once. If you return to Maury, I will give you the earliest information; if, on the contrary, you prefer to remain in Charville, you will have the satisfaction of being on the spot, and able to adopt whatever measures you think advisable—for the security of your inheritance,” added the doctor, with a little mockery in his smile, which was not lost upon the curé.Monsieur Saint-Martin, not having recovered himself, answered sharply: “Certainly I do not choose to remain in this city of the plague. My lawyer will be here to-day; and as to further proceedings, I shall be guided by him. He may suggest immediate action.”“I should recommend your carrying it out at once,” replied M. Deshoulières gravely. Fabien, who hated ridicule, looked quickly at him to see whether he was serious or not, and could not satisfy himself.“It is unendurable,” he muttered. “After having all one’s life been pestered by the vagaries of an old man, he might at least have spared his ridiculous restraints when he was dead, and could find no pleasure in them.”“Is Mademoiselle Veuillot here?” asked the curé, looking up.“She is. She is in the next room.”“What do you propose to do?” said Fabien, disregarding.“I have already told you, monsieur. Meanwhile you may employ any spurs with which your lawyer may furnish you,” replied M. Deshoulières impatiently. Thérèse was in the next room, and this man was indifferent.“You ought to see Mademoiselle Veuillot at once,” said the curé, rising.“Thérèse? Oh, yes. She is here, you say? By all means.”She heard their voices in the passage; half rose, and sat down again, while the colour faded completely out of her face. In the balcony, Nannon was singing her little refrain,—“Hélas, je sais un chant d’amourTriste ou gai tour à tour;”an old melancholy Breton song that had somehow been wafted across from, the quaint wild province of hills and chestnut trees to these broad unromantic corn plains. Thérèse, who had not heard it before, never forgot the little sad air. She heard the song, and the voices, and the door opening; but for the first moment it was all confused. It was her own name which recalled her; her own name in Fabien’s voice.“Ah, Thérèse, at last we meet! Believe me that I am enchanted to renew our acquaintance. You have not quite forgotten me, I flatter myself.”She raised her eyes, not to his but to Monsieur Deshoulières’. One piteous, appealing glance—what was this?—acquaintance—forgotten? Three years of hungering and hoping, and could this be her greeting at the end? He with an overwhelming pity in his heart might not help her by look, or sign, or word. Face to face, heart to heart, these two must show each other the story of their lives.“You have come at last, Fabien,” she said, faintly.“After all, yes. I have had enough of South America, as you may imagine. It was a little more amusing than the old bureau at Rouen, but it was becomingennuyant. Variety before all. Life requires to be tasted like wine, a sip here and a sip there before one decides. Now I shall try the charms of Paris. And you? have you remained here since my uncle’s death? Atristeplace, is it not?”And she had loved him! By some subtile force of sympathy, Max knew that she was suffering a sharper pang than any which had come to him. He was standing with the curé where they could not see them, but he could hear the light frivolous voice, the heartless words. He had loved in vain, but she had loved unworthily. There is no sting so sharp as that sting. And outside, in the sunny balcony, old Nannon was crooning over her refrain—“Hélas, je sais un chant d’amour,Triste ou gai tour à tour:Ce chant qui de mon coeur s’élève,D’ou vient qu’en pleurant je l’achève!”Thérèse was very pale, but she had got back her self-possession.“I am sure that poor M. Moreau felt your departure.”“Did he? Ah, that is not improbable! He should have conducted himself differently, and prevailed on me to stay. However, I pardon him; he did his best to atone for it by dying at the right moment. Not but what I owe him something for his conduct even then.”“Oh, Fabien!”“It is true, then,” he said excitedly. “And M. Deshoulières is aware of my sentiments.”Max turned round grave and quiet.“It is unnecessary to repeat them in the presence of Mademoiselle Veuillot.”“Parbleu, and why? They will be repeated before the world very shortly, let me assure you, if the will and certain explanations do not reach me.”She looked inquiringly—again not at him, but at M. Deshoulières. This time he answered her: “Monsieur Roulleau’s absence has placed us in a difficulty. Until his return M. Saint-Martin has only my Word to rely upon.”“A word which, unfortunately, is contradicted by facts.”Whether he was provoked by M. Deshoulières’ calmness, or irritated by his disappointment, his tone was more insulting than it had been the preceding night. The girl’s eyes flashed.“Are you doubting his word?”“There is scarcely room fordoubt,” said Fabien, meaningly.With a swift impetuous impulse she crossed to where Max stood,—“How can you let them say such things?” she said, passionately, her breathing short and quick. Poor Thérèse! she felt all a woman’s indignation and a woman’s powerlessness at once. “M. le Curé,” she cried, “how can you listen and not speak?” I think she dumbfounded them all for a minute. Nannon, who heard her voice, stopped her chanson to listen. Max, with a strange sweet pain in his heart, looked down at her and cared very little for Fabien’s rude speeches. After all, she was not powerless. Max looked at her and said, softly,—“Such things do not hurt me.”And at that moment there was a heavy step, a little fumbling at the door, and Madame Roulleau came in. Her face was so white and rigid that Fabien, who did not know her, exclaimed as if she were an apparition, and, indeed, the others were scarcely less startled. She came across the room, like a person walking in a dream, straight to where M. Deshoulières stood, and flung a key on the table, before him.“There is what you want,” she said. “If I touch the papers they will scorch me.”They all looked at one another. Thérèse, who was still trembling with excitement, put her hand on her arm. Madame Roulleau threw it off, keeping her eyes fixed on M. Deshoulières.“Do you wish to know why I have come?” she went on. “Tenez, you can hear, then, all of you. My little Adolphe is dead—dead, do you understand?—dead of the fever; and my husband, who was frightened, has left him and me by ourselves. That is what husbands should do, is it not?” She spoke like a person in an agony; Thérèse shuddered. “Some one said M. Saint-Martin was here—it was either that sister or Adolphe, I do not know which. I can tell you all about it. We will begin from the beginning—that was at Ardron. M. Deshoulières, as you know, and my husband brought me home the letters which he found,—two letters from Rio Janeiro asking for money. I burned them. Burning is always safe. Two others came afterwards, and those I burned also. We wrote those answers that we had from Paris. Is that all? No, I remember. There was that appointment at Pont-huine, when you sent Ignace, but it was easy enough for him to stay away.”“Unhappy woman,” said the curé, sternly, “what led you into all this wickedness?”She did not answer him. She had her eyes still fixed upon M. Deshoulières, and she never looked aside.“Ask her,” said the curé.“Why was this, Madame Roulleau?” said the doctor, sadly.“We wanted the money,” she answered at once; “the money you gave us for the girl. And what Ignace had to do about it brought in money. We knew it must all go again when M. Saint-Martin came home. Last night I said to myself that I would tell you; I do not know why I came here; the sister said something, I believe. She is staying with him.” And then, with a bitter cry which they never forgot, “He is dead—dead! I dared not send for you, and you might have saved him.” She went swiftly out of the room, down the stairs, into the street. If they had wished to stop her they could scarcely have done so; but they all stood dumb, that last cry ringing in their ears.“Libera nos a malo,” said the curé, at last, under his breath. “Amen.”He was a just man. Perhaps his prayer had not only to do with that poor stricken woman who had gone out from them. Perhaps he was thinking also of the evil of suspicions and accusations without cause. He was a just man, but ungracious. He wanted to speak at once to M. Deshoulières, and the words would not come readily. Thérèse was looking shyly and beseechingly at Fabien. Why did he not acknowledge the unconscious wrong that he had done? Nobody spoke. It was Nannon who broke the silence, coming in from the balcony.“The saints preserve us! She has gone down the street as if there were a mob at her heels.”“I may as well go and search for the will, I believe,” said M. Deshoulières, turning round with a sigh. Thérèse still looked at Fabien. Why did he not speak?“M. Saint-Martin,” said the curé, gravely, “I think there is a duty for us to perform before we can allow M. Deshoulières to leave us—a duty and a reparation. My own share in the matter has been the heaviest. I beg to offer him my most sincere apologies.”“It may or may not be, as this woman says,” Fabien answered grudgingly; “it does not explain it altogether to my mind. At all events it is impossible to congratulate M. Deshoulières upon his choice of a notary. I shall make a point of having the rascal punished, and meanwhile may I request you, monsieur, to do us the favour to fetch the will without delay? The sooner one gets out of this hole the better.”“Allow me to repudiate M. St. Martin’s sentiments altogether,” said the curé, with a flush on his sallow cheek. “I beg to decline having any thing to do with the reading of the papers connected with this—what I may call—unfortunate will. It had better be delayed until the arrival of the lawyer.”“You desert me, in fact, Monsieur le Curé,” said Fabien, crossly.“I leave you in good hands, as you must be aware,” said the curé, who, having been mistaken himself, felt a degree of satisfaction in snubbing the young man. “Nothing that I can say can atone for the pain we have unintentionally inflicted upon M. Deshoulières, and all that remains is a matter of form.”“Will you not consent to meet us here to-morrow at the same time?”“On the contrary, immediately that I have been to the Evêché, I shall return to Ardron. Are you coming my way, M. Deshoulières?”They all went down the stairs together—the curé, the doctor, Fabien looking discontented, Thérèse, and Nannon. Thérèse lingered a moment to say in an undertone,—“Fabien, why do you not acknowledge that you have wronged him!”“Wronged him, bah! The only person wronged is myself. Thérèse, you used to take my part.”It was the first allusion, on his part, to other days. A little earlier in the interview it would have touched her more. Now it gave her something of the old sense of compassion for his weakness; but that was not the feeling that could bring her back. Her heart had always revolted against injustice; it revolted now doubly, trebly. She was frightened at herself; frightened at the way in which the love she had been clinging to all this time was melting away. In the midst of her pain and indignation and pity, it gave her a strange unreal feeling. There is often a strange medley in our hearts on those days which we call crises in our lives. The lesser things subside, and we forget all but the most prominent; but at the time the oddest emotions hustle one another. Thérèse was puzzled at herself; at the change that seemed to have come over her since that morning. And then she found herself curiously watching the little procession that went down the stairs,—the curé in his flowing black cassock and his wide beaver hat; M. Deshoulières and Fabien, so unlike each other; Nannon, with her broad shoulders and her heavily plaited green gown—it seemed as if all the characters in her little drama were trooping down together. Monsieur Deshoulières was the victor, who was going away in triumph, but there was not much triumph in his heart just then. At the door they separated.“Adieu, Thérèse,” said Fabien, with his hand on the door of thesalle-à-manger.“Adieu, Fabien.”“If you come to Paris at any time let me know. Do not allow the provinces to engross you altogether. Or if you have need of any thing—”“I have need of nothing.”“In that case,au revoir.”He wanted to punish her. His nature was too small to bear the humiliation of allowing himself to be in the wrong. He was in a rage with them all, and he wanted to punish her. He only stung her. And the others had passed out, so that they heard nothing.
“Aimer sans Amour est amer.”
“Aimer sans Amour est amer.”
Thérèse was waiting for M. Deshoulières the next morning when he went to Rue St. Servan. He could not tell how she looked; she was eager, troubled, doubtful, all at once. He did not yet know what had happened, but he guessed directly. “Ah, that poor madame!” she said shuddering. “It is too terrible—” and then she stopped.
He saw that she had been overwrought. All that night Madame Roulleau had lain on the floor by the child’s bed, in a fierce agony of despair, not weeping, but writhing. Once she had looked up with dry, burning eyes, and said to Thérèse hoarsely, “Your lover is come. Do you remember?hetold you so once, and I beat him for it. Do you hear that, all of you? I told a lie, and I beat my little Adolphe.” There was something so terrible in her voice and in her face, that Thérèse and Nannon shrank. And this was all that she knew of Fabien. The poor child, in spite of her bravery, could hardly endure these different emotions that were tearing at her heart. Nothing at the hospital had been so dreadful to witness as the sight of that hard, insupportable agony. And in the midst of it she had been told that Fabien was come.
“What is it all?” she said, putting out her hand to Max, with an appealing glance that went to his heart. He answered it at once with a kind smile.
“There is good news for you. M. Saint-Martin has come at last.”
“So it is true!” Her face changed suddenly, her eyes danced. “I could not believe it; but if you say so, I know it is true.”
Yes, those grave blue eyes were true as truth itself. There was a burden to be borne by one, perhaps by both of them, and his work should be to lighten hers.
“You may believe it, indeed. I have seen him—”
“Seen him!” Such gladness in her face!—such gladness in her voice!
“And you shall meet him to-day at the Cygne.”
Something made her put out her hand to him again. “What do I not owe you!” she said, gratefully.
“For what?” he said with a smile. “I was neither the letter nor the ship that brought him back.Allons, it appears to me it is monsieur the curé of Ardron whom you will have to thank the most.”
She shook her head without answering. She was not deceived. If ever friend was faithful to his friendship, it was this friend. Neither of them spoke for a moment, then Thérèse said slowly,—“I shall understand every thing better by and by, I think. I fancy there are things which neither of us understand as yet. That poor woman—!” she added, sighing.
“So the poor little one is dead!”
“It is not that only—I mean that is not the worst,” she said in answer to his look. “Her sorrow is so dreadful to see. I have asked her to hear Père Gaspard, but she will not let him come into the room. I wonder whether Sister Gabrielle could do any thing! I wonder what it is! She says such terrible things.”
M. Deshoulières was too generous-hearted to suspect readily, but that night he had been perplexed by thoughts of little Roulleau, suggested in the interview at Maury.
“I must see her husband,” he said. “Is he with her, or shall I find him in the bureau?”
“Did you not know?” asked Thérèse in surprise. “He is not here. He went away again at once when he heard of the fever. The little coward!”
“Went away!”
“But yes, indeed. To Tours, she supposes. I think that is one of the things that has half killed her.”
M. Deshoulières’ face became more grave. This flight of the little notary added considerably to the difficulties of his position. He remembered also that Ignace had heard his tidings of M. Saint-Martin’s arrival. Thérèse, who saw this cloud, asked at once, “What is it?”
“I do not like his absence at this time, and I want the papers connected with M. Moreau’s will. Will you wait here for a moment while I speak to the clerk?”
He came back again presently, shaking his head. “We can go no further than the outside of the chest; Madame Roulleau has the keys, and I am afraid you must make an effort to get them. It is really a matter of extreme importance, or I would not ask you to undertake such a task,” he added abruptly.
Thérèse turned a little pale. “Does it not seem cruel?”
“I cannot help it. It is necessary. Would you rather that I saw her?”
“No, no. I will try, but I dread it.”
She was absent so long that he had risen to follow her, when she came into the room again, white and trembling. “No, I have done nothing,” she said, in answer to his look. “She only rocks herself backwards and forwards on the ground. She never looked up—I do not know whether she heard me; but yet she must have, for when I came away at last, I heard her spring up and bolt the door. Nannon is out, and there she is quite alone. It cannot matter so greatly. Fabien can wait for his papers another day—” A shade that unconsciously crossed his face made her cry out quickly, “They will trust you unreservedly!”
“Scarcely that, perhaps,” he said, with a smile and a sigh. “Well, we must wait; this fit may possibly pass off. I will go and ask Sister Gabrielle to come here. Whether that poor woman will see her or not, she will be some one in the house, for you must take Nannon with you to the Cygne soon after twelve. You understand that it is on account of the fever that I do not bring M. Saint-Martin here?”
“Yes, yes. But ought I to see him? You are sure there is no danger?” she asked piteously.
“Not with the usual precautions. Can I help you in any way?”
“No, thank you. Père Gaspard has been very kind.”
Thérèse never knew how those hours passed. She tried to go into the room where madame lay in her awful depth of despair, but the door was locked, and Thérèse, who could not keep down the well of joy that seemed to come dancing up from her heart, felt indeed as if this happiness separated them more than any bolts. She called herself cruel, inhuman; she thought of little Adolphe, the weariness, the fever, the pain; but even while her tears fell, those glad visions would intrude themselves. When we are quite young we are so rigorous over our sorrows that we are impatient of comfort; it is in after life that we learn to refuse no consolations. She scolded herself, and then when Sister Gabrielle came, fell into her arms, and laughed and cried together. Sister Gabrielle, who had a way of soothing people, listened quietly, and seemed to lift that little burden of self-reproach from her heart. She dressed her, and called Nannon, and stood on the top of the steps watching the two go away together down the street, and under the dark archway. Charville had broken out into its cheerfulness again; the fever was dying away, only here and there was still the sharp anguish of recent loss like Madame Roulleau’s. Thérèse went off with a buoyant step into the sunshine, and the merry jangle of voices. Sister Gabrielle turned back into the house, took her knitting, and sat patiently on the stairs outside the room, where the mother had shut herself in with her despair.
When Thérèse reached the Cygne, something of her brightness had fled. She hung back with a little dread; it was Nannon who pushed forward, and made Toinette show them the room which M. Deshoulières had set apart for them.
“There is no one there; see, mademoiselle!” she said, reconnoitring.
It had a balcony, which looked over the sycamore-trees at the lovely spires of the Cathedral. Nannon, with quick tact, went out there, and sat humming a little chanson, very cracked and discordant, but to her full of memories of her girlhood. Those songs of old age are the most pathetic songs of all. Thérèse in the room waited with a hundred hopes and fears in her heart. It was three years since she had seen Fabien, and now that he was near she began to tremble.
Meanwhile, in another room of the hotel, a stormy discussion was taking place. It was necessary for M. Deshoulières to greet the two gentlemen with the information that the notary had left Charville unexpectedly, and that it was not in his power to produce the will. M. Saint-Martin broke out in passionate terms at once.
“So, monsieur, and this is the end! Do not suppose that I have come here to be trifled with.”
“M. Deshoulières must be aware,” interrupted the curé in his frigid tones, “that he stands in a strange position.”
“M. le Curé, I am perfectly aware. M. Saint-Martin has—not a right, but a certain amount of excuse for what would otherwise be unpardonable expressions. But when I have said this, I have said all. Events have conspired to bring about this false position, and a very short time will, I suppose, set it right. Meanwhile, I claim the courtesy and the trust which is due from one gentleman to another.”
“From one gentleman!—yes,” sneered Fabien. “Pardon, monsieur; I was not aware that you considered yourself beyond that pale.”
Fabien, who was white with rage, would have answered fiercely, but the curé again interfered.
“Messieurs, the interests of both require something more than a battle of words.”
“You are right,” said Max, turning frankly towards him. “I regret what I said. The delay is just as vexatious to me as to you—more so, in fact, since it seems to create suspicions which are certainly not agreeable for me to hear—but we had better meet it like reasonable beings. It is possible that I can obtain the keys from Madame Roulleau to-morrow—at all events learn where her husband is, and telegraph for him at once. If you return to Maury, I will give you the earliest information; if, on the contrary, you prefer to remain in Charville, you will have the satisfaction of being on the spot, and able to adopt whatever measures you think advisable—for the security of your inheritance,” added the doctor, with a little mockery in his smile, which was not lost upon the curé.
Monsieur Saint-Martin, not having recovered himself, answered sharply: “Certainly I do not choose to remain in this city of the plague. My lawyer will be here to-day; and as to further proceedings, I shall be guided by him. He may suggest immediate action.”
“I should recommend your carrying it out at once,” replied M. Deshoulières gravely. Fabien, who hated ridicule, looked quickly at him to see whether he was serious or not, and could not satisfy himself.
“It is unendurable,” he muttered. “After having all one’s life been pestered by the vagaries of an old man, he might at least have spared his ridiculous restraints when he was dead, and could find no pleasure in them.”
“Is Mademoiselle Veuillot here?” asked the curé, looking up.
“She is. She is in the next room.”
“What do you propose to do?” said Fabien, disregarding.
“I have already told you, monsieur. Meanwhile you may employ any spurs with which your lawyer may furnish you,” replied M. Deshoulières impatiently. Thérèse was in the next room, and this man was indifferent.
“You ought to see Mademoiselle Veuillot at once,” said the curé, rising.
“Thérèse? Oh, yes. She is here, you say? By all means.”
She heard their voices in the passage; half rose, and sat down again, while the colour faded completely out of her face. In the balcony, Nannon was singing her little refrain,—
“Hélas, je sais un chant d’amourTriste ou gai tour à tour;”
“Hélas, je sais un chant d’amourTriste ou gai tour à tour;”
an old melancholy Breton song that had somehow been wafted across from, the quaint wild province of hills and chestnut trees to these broad unromantic corn plains. Thérèse, who had not heard it before, never forgot the little sad air. She heard the song, and the voices, and the door opening; but for the first moment it was all confused. It was her own name which recalled her; her own name in Fabien’s voice.
“Ah, Thérèse, at last we meet! Believe me that I am enchanted to renew our acquaintance. You have not quite forgotten me, I flatter myself.”
She raised her eyes, not to his but to Monsieur Deshoulières’. One piteous, appealing glance—what was this?—acquaintance—forgotten? Three years of hungering and hoping, and could this be her greeting at the end? He with an overwhelming pity in his heart might not help her by look, or sign, or word. Face to face, heart to heart, these two must show each other the story of their lives.
“You have come at last, Fabien,” she said, faintly.
“After all, yes. I have had enough of South America, as you may imagine. It was a little more amusing than the old bureau at Rouen, but it was becomingennuyant. Variety before all. Life requires to be tasted like wine, a sip here and a sip there before one decides. Now I shall try the charms of Paris. And you? have you remained here since my uncle’s death? Atristeplace, is it not?”
And she had loved him! By some subtile force of sympathy, Max knew that she was suffering a sharper pang than any which had come to him. He was standing with the curé where they could not see them, but he could hear the light frivolous voice, the heartless words. He had loved in vain, but she had loved unworthily. There is no sting so sharp as that sting. And outside, in the sunny balcony, old Nannon was crooning over her refrain—
“Hélas, je sais un chant d’amour,Triste ou gai tour à tour:Ce chant qui de mon coeur s’élève,D’ou vient qu’en pleurant je l’achève!”
“Hélas, je sais un chant d’amour,Triste ou gai tour à tour:Ce chant qui de mon coeur s’élève,D’ou vient qu’en pleurant je l’achève!”
Thérèse was very pale, but she had got back her self-possession.
“I am sure that poor M. Moreau felt your departure.”
“Did he? Ah, that is not improbable! He should have conducted himself differently, and prevailed on me to stay. However, I pardon him; he did his best to atone for it by dying at the right moment. Not but what I owe him something for his conduct even then.”
“Oh, Fabien!”
“It is true, then,” he said excitedly. “And M. Deshoulières is aware of my sentiments.”
Max turned round grave and quiet.
“It is unnecessary to repeat them in the presence of Mademoiselle Veuillot.”
“Parbleu, and why? They will be repeated before the world very shortly, let me assure you, if the will and certain explanations do not reach me.”
She looked inquiringly—again not at him, but at M. Deshoulières. This time he answered her: “Monsieur Roulleau’s absence has placed us in a difficulty. Until his return M. Saint-Martin has only my Word to rely upon.”
“A word which, unfortunately, is contradicted by facts.”
Whether he was provoked by M. Deshoulières’ calmness, or irritated by his disappointment, his tone was more insulting than it had been the preceding night. The girl’s eyes flashed.
“Are you doubting his word?”
“There is scarcely room fordoubt,” said Fabien, meaningly.
With a swift impetuous impulse she crossed to where Max stood,—
“How can you let them say such things?” she said, passionately, her breathing short and quick. Poor Thérèse! she felt all a woman’s indignation and a woman’s powerlessness at once. “M. le Curé,” she cried, “how can you listen and not speak?” I think she dumbfounded them all for a minute. Nannon, who heard her voice, stopped her chanson to listen. Max, with a strange sweet pain in his heart, looked down at her and cared very little for Fabien’s rude speeches. After all, she was not powerless. Max looked at her and said, softly,—
“Such things do not hurt me.”
And at that moment there was a heavy step, a little fumbling at the door, and Madame Roulleau came in. Her face was so white and rigid that Fabien, who did not know her, exclaimed as if she were an apparition, and, indeed, the others were scarcely less startled. She came across the room, like a person walking in a dream, straight to where M. Deshoulières stood, and flung a key on the table, before him.
“There is what you want,” she said. “If I touch the papers they will scorch me.”
They all looked at one another. Thérèse, who was still trembling with excitement, put her hand on her arm. Madame Roulleau threw it off, keeping her eyes fixed on M. Deshoulières.
“Do you wish to know why I have come?” she went on. “Tenez, you can hear, then, all of you. My little Adolphe is dead—dead, do you understand?—dead of the fever; and my husband, who was frightened, has left him and me by ourselves. That is what husbands should do, is it not?” She spoke like a person in an agony; Thérèse shuddered. “Some one said M. Saint-Martin was here—it was either that sister or Adolphe, I do not know which. I can tell you all about it. We will begin from the beginning—that was at Ardron. M. Deshoulières, as you know, and my husband brought me home the letters which he found,—two letters from Rio Janeiro asking for money. I burned them. Burning is always safe. Two others came afterwards, and those I burned also. We wrote those answers that we had from Paris. Is that all? No, I remember. There was that appointment at Pont-huine, when you sent Ignace, but it was easy enough for him to stay away.”
“Unhappy woman,” said the curé, sternly, “what led you into all this wickedness?”
She did not answer him. She had her eyes still fixed upon M. Deshoulières, and she never looked aside.
“Ask her,” said the curé.
“Why was this, Madame Roulleau?” said the doctor, sadly.
“We wanted the money,” she answered at once; “the money you gave us for the girl. And what Ignace had to do about it brought in money. We knew it must all go again when M. Saint-Martin came home. Last night I said to myself that I would tell you; I do not know why I came here; the sister said something, I believe. She is staying with him.” And then, with a bitter cry which they never forgot, “He is dead—dead! I dared not send for you, and you might have saved him.” She went swiftly out of the room, down the stairs, into the street. If they had wished to stop her they could scarcely have done so; but they all stood dumb, that last cry ringing in their ears.
“Libera nos a malo,” said the curé, at last, under his breath. “Amen.”
He was a just man. Perhaps his prayer had not only to do with that poor stricken woman who had gone out from them. Perhaps he was thinking also of the evil of suspicions and accusations without cause. He was a just man, but ungracious. He wanted to speak at once to M. Deshoulières, and the words would not come readily. Thérèse was looking shyly and beseechingly at Fabien. Why did he not acknowledge the unconscious wrong that he had done? Nobody spoke. It was Nannon who broke the silence, coming in from the balcony.
“The saints preserve us! She has gone down the street as if there were a mob at her heels.”
“I may as well go and search for the will, I believe,” said M. Deshoulières, turning round with a sigh. Thérèse still looked at Fabien. Why did he not speak?
“M. Saint-Martin,” said the curé, gravely, “I think there is a duty for us to perform before we can allow M. Deshoulières to leave us—a duty and a reparation. My own share in the matter has been the heaviest. I beg to offer him my most sincere apologies.”
“It may or may not be, as this woman says,” Fabien answered grudgingly; “it does not explain it altogether to my mind. At all events it is impossible to congratulate M. Deshoulières upon his choice of a notary. I shall make a point of having the rascal punished, and meanwhile may I request you, monsieur, to do us the favour to fetch the will without delay? The sooner one gets out of this hole the better.”
“Allow me to repudiate M. St. Martin’s sentiments altogether,” said the curé, with a flush on his sallow cheek. “I beg to decline having any thing to do with the reading of the papers connected with this—what I may call—unfortunate will. It had better be delayed until the arrival of the lawyer.”
“You desert me, in fact, Monsieur le Curé,” said Fabien, crossly.
“I leave you in good hands, as you must be aware,” said the curé, who, having been mistaken himself, felt a degree of satisfaction in snubbing the young man. “Nothing that I can say can atone for the pain we have unintentionally inflicted upon M. Deshoulières, and all that remains is a matter of form.”
“Will you not consent to meet us here to-morrow at the same time?”
“On the contrary, immediately that I have been to the Evêché, I shall return to Ardron. Are you coming my way, M. Deshoulières?”
They all went down the stairs together—the curé, the doctor, Fabien looking discontented, Thérèse, and Nannon. Thérèse lingered a moment to say in an undertone,—
“Fabien, why do you not acknowledge that you have wronged him!”
“Wronged him, bah! The only person wronged is myself. Thérèse, you used to take my part.”
It was the first allusion, on his part, to other days. A little earlier in the interview it would have touched her more. Now it gave her something of the old sense of compassion for his weakness; but that was not the feeling that could bring her back. Her heart had always revolted against injustice; it revolted now doubly, trebly. She was frightened at herself; frightened at the way in which the love she had been clinging to all this time was melting away. In the midst of her pain and indignation and pity, it gave her a strange unreal feeling. There is often a strange medley in our hearts on those days which we call crises in our lives. The lesser things subside, and we forget all but the most prominent; but at the time the oddest emotions hustle one another. Thérèse was puzzled at herself; at the change that seemed to have come over her since that morning. And then she found herself curiously watching the little procession that went down the stairs,—the curé in his flowing black cassock and his wide beaver hat; M. Deshoulières and Fabien, so unlike each other; Nannon, with her broad shoulders and her heavily plaited green gown—it seemed as if all the characters in her little drama were trooping down together. Monsieur Deshoulières was the victor, who was going away in triumph, but there was not much triumph in his heart just then. At the door they separated.
“Adieu, Thérèse,” said Fabien, with his hand on the door of thesalle-à-manger.
“Adieu, Fabien.”
“If you come to Paris at any time let me know. Do not allow the provinces to engross you altogether. Or if you have need of any thing—”
“I have need of nothing.”
“In that case,au revoir.”
He wanted to punish her. His nature was too small to bear the humiliation of allowing himself to be in the wrong. He was in a rage with them all, and he wanted to punish her. He only stung her. And the others had passed out, so that they heard nothing.