up in the marquis de kersaint’s room m. pierre chassin, priest and plotter, tired as he was, had been for some time pacing uneasily up and down. he had just returned from the mouth of the seine and the successful despatch to england of the gold of mirabel, which (as the agent in paris at whose house it had been accumulating had indeed come under suspicion) the abbé had had to pack up with exceeding haste, and take to the coast himself. but though he had just passed some agitated days and nights between paris and harfleur, the memory of them was as nothing to that of the shock and emotion he had experienced in the chapel at mirabel. so that he was thinking at the moment scarcely at all of what he had so dexterously got out of the chateau, but of what he had left in it. and he was fairly distracted.
for the twentieth time he cursed the contre-temps which had hurried him away from mirabel in so untimely a fashion, before he had had opportunity to decide whether he ought or ought not to break his solemn promise to gaston—that promise renewed at hennebont. now he saw clearly that it would have been right to break it, and that if he had only been granted a little longer there he would have done so. and had not such grave issues depended on his getting the money into safety he would willingly have risked his own personal liberty by remaining a few hours longer near the duchesse; he would even have returned to mirabel when his errand was accomplished, but for the practical certainty of being arrested and thereby, probably, compromising her. even now the idea had visited him of writing to her and revealing the marquis de kersaint’s identity. but that would indeed be confiding his foster-brother’s jealously-guarded secret to the birds of the air, for he could not use a cipher to mme de trélan, and the letter might be intercepted by the government . . . and it might some day mean gaston’s life if the directory knew who he really was. still, she herself might write to the “marquis de kersaint” to make enquiries. god grant it! or she might come in person, as he had so earnestly pressed.
yet, if only he had learnt her secret otherwise than under the seal of the confessional, when the knowledge might not be communicated, might not be used. if only he had had the wit to guess it! but we only see what we have some grounds for believing that we shall see. . . . here he was again, possessed of information he could not impart to the person vitally interested—only in this case time would never show him that he ought to disclose it. his lips were shut, absolutely, till eternity. some other person must make the revelation—and the only other person who had the necessary knowledge was the comte de brencourt.
and m. de brencourt had escaped, was already back. perhaps he had told gaston by this time—for what more natural than that the “kinsman” of the duc de trélan should be immediately informed of a fact of such paramount importance to his relative? something, however, made the priest quite sure that m. de brencourt had not taken this course—the remembrance of what he knew to be his deliberate lie to the duchesse de trélan. after viewing that lie from every side m. chassin had come to a pretty correct estimate of the motive that had prompted it, and it did not raise his hopes of forcing the comte to a revelation. indeed, he almost wondered why m. de brencourt had returned to the clos-aux-grives at all.
he wondered, too, with a growing uneasiness, on what conceivable errand the two gentlemen could have gone out to-night, as, on his own arrival, the exhilarated artamène had told him they had done. why should they both go, at such an hour, and without the shadow of an escort?
then he heard steps and voices in the passage, and stopped his pacing. they were back. his forebodings suddenly seemed ridiculous. the door was opened a little way.
“thank you, de brencourt. good-night,” said gaston’s voice, with a ring of fatigue in it. “no, thanks; the abbé will do anything that is necessary.” and he came in.
the light in the room, emanating from a somewhat smoky lamp, did not instantly reveal his state, and he said, in a quite natural manner, “my dear pierre! this is indeed good! and i am to congratulate you, i think?”
m. chassin had advanced round the table to take his outstretched left hand. nearer, he saw; and he no longer took the hand in question—he caught at it.
“gaston! what in god’s name has happened to you? here—sit down, for pity’s sake!”
he pulled out the nearest chair from the table, and, far from unwillingly, the wounded man sat down in it, saying as he did so, “but, my dear pierre, why all this emotion at the sight of a little blood?”
the abbé suddenly made use of a very unecclesiastical expression. “what has happened to you?” he repeated, standing over him.
“if you must know,” said his foster-brother, leaning back with a little smile in the chair, “i have had the bad luck to be winged by a blue who must have been lurking in the forest, and the wound, slight in itself, has bled a good deal, that is all.—sit down, pierre, and tell me your news. you have succeeded—i can see it!”
how he could see it on the perturbed countenance gazing down at him was not easy to guess.
“yes, i have succeeded,” returned the priest shortly. “but there is plenty of time to talk about that later. i will see this wound first, if you please. what in the name of fortune were you doing in the forest at this time of night? and who bandaged this up—who was the imbecile who took your coat off you and put it on again instead of slitting up the sleeve?”
for the marquis, submitting to the inevitable, had stiffly and painfully drawn his arm out of the breast of his coat and laid it on the table.
“one question at a time, mon cher,” he said. “m. de brencourt was with me, and it was he who was kind enough to do what he could for me. i myself was the imbecile who insisted on getting into my coat again.”
“and why, may i ask?” enquired the abbé, rapidly unbandaging. “do you enjoy putting yourself to pain?”
“does anybody?” retorted his patient. “i did not want to cause more alarm on my return than i needed; that was why.”
“humph; very thoughtful of you!” commented m. chassin, glancing at him. “tch! tch! a nice business! the ball is still there!”
“i believe it is,” admitted m. de kersaint almost apologetically.
“can you move your fingers?”
“i can, but i don’t want to.”
“i wonder where it has got to,” murmured the abbé, still examining. “does that hurt?”
“yes, infernally,” responded the victim, wincing.
“very well, i will not do it again. wherever it is the bullet will have to come out.”
“naturally,” said the marquis resignedly. “but at least tie my arm up for to-night—and tell me about the treasure.”
“tell me first about this, gaston. was the man near—this looks to me as if it had been fired from a few yards off only? did you see him?”
“n . . . no; he was in the shadow under the trees.”
“whereabouts?”
his foster-brother hesitated. “not far from the moulin-aux-fées.”
“holy virgin, what were you doing there?”
“perhaps foolishly, taking a walk.” and then he went on quickly, “but are you not going to tie this thing up, or am i to spend the night like this?”
for his bared arm, streaked with blood and much swollen round the little bluish orifice, rested before him on the table, and the abbé had retired into the bedroom.
“i am going to wash it first,” came his voice from within. the marquis put his head back against the chair. he suddenly looked exhausted.
the sound of pouring water was heard. “this solitary republican had a musket, i imagine—or was it a pistol? the wound looks to me rather like a pistol-wound.”
“no, it was a musket . . . at least i suppose so,” replied the duellist almost inaudibly. the priest came to the door of the bedroom and looked at him for a second; then he vanished again and reappeared with a glass in his hand.
“drink this, if you please, gaston!” he said authoritatively. his brother opened his eyes.
“i detest brandy,” he said, almost petulantly. “and you surely do not think that i am going to faint?”
“that is as it may be,” returned the abbé, watching the speaker narrowly as he took and drained the glass. and he washed and bandaged very speedily, asking not a single further question during the operation. perhaps he had come to the conclusion that he were better advised not to do so, for other reasons than that his patient was not in the most fitting condition to answer them. after which, refusing in his own turn to satisfy any enquiries about the treasure that evening, he announced his intention of acting as the marquis’s body-servant for the nonce; and did so.
“you’ll do best with this pillow under your arm,” he observed when the wounded man was in bed. “we will have the surgeon from lanvennec as early as we can get him to-morrow morning.”
“damnable nuisance, that!” muttered the sufferer impatiently. “are you sure that you could not manage to extract the ball yourself, pierre?”
“having some small idea of the intricate structure even of the human arm,” responded m. chassin, arranging the pillow under the arm in question, “i am quite sure that i could not, without possibly maiming you for life. and why should you object to having a surgeon?—is that comfortable?”
“since you succeeded in extracting the gold from mirabel,” observed mirabel’s owner, looking up at him with a rather feverish brilliance in his eyes, “i should have thought that a trifle like this would be nothing to you. my god, pierre, have you really got it all—twenty-five thousand pistoles? it is almost too good to believe! why, with half that amount——”
the priest held up his finger, smiling. “yes, i got it nearly all away. and now you must——”
“a moment, pierre! no, i insist on asking this! that woman at mirabel—the concierge; i hope she has not been compromised in any way? i should be most deeply concerned if it were so.”
“ah, the concierge,” repeated m. chassin, and he paused. “—no, as far as i know, she has not fallen under suspicion at all. but i had to leave extremely hurriedly, so that i should be very glad if i—if you, rather, could make enquiries on the point.”
“i shall do so,” said his foster-brother. “think of what i owe her—the boy’s safety, perhaps his life. . . . why are you looking at me like that, pierre?”
the priest pulled himself together. “you have asked enough questions for to-night, gaston. just answer me one in return.—since we parted, has not m. de brencourt . . . guessed your secret?”
the marquis flushed, and his mouth tightened. “i think he guessed it long ago.”
“but he knows it now, beyond guessing—you know that he knows?”
a pause. “yes,” said the duc de trélan at last, frowning and reluctant. “i know . . . that he knows.”
he turned his head away on the pillow.
“thank you,” responded m. chassin rather grimly. and then, he added, in a tone astonishingly light-hearted, “i daresay it is as well.”
the duc bit his lip. “i am glad you think so,” he replied in an exceedingly cold voice. and from the reply and its manner the priest learnt what he wanted to learn. m. de brencourt had made no pleasant use of his knowledge.
“if you need anything in the night, or cannot sleep, gaston, call for me. i shall spend it in your room out there.—yes, it is necessary. try not to make calculations about what mirabel has given you, but get some rest if you can.”
“and if i cannot, what pleasanter subject could i have to think about?” enquired his patient, looking up at him again. the frown was gone. “and for that, as for so much else, i have to thank you, my brother.” he held out his left hand.
“and suppose,” said the abbé in a low voice, as he took it in both his own, “suppose that i had come back with my news to find you with a bullet in your heart! gaston, you might have remembered . . . me!”
the hand in his own returned his grip, but the voice said, with fair composure, “yes, it was foolhardy, that walk. but surely, pierre, you know that one day or the other you are certain to find me as you say; and you know, too, that if i have finished my task it is what i should desire.”
“yes,” said pierre chassin very gravely. “i do not wish you any better death, when the time comes. but the death you faced to-night was not worthy of you. perhaps the prayers of . . . of one who lived at mirabel averted it. and i know you must have been tried beyond endurance. . . . see, i have shaded the candle so; and remember to call me. good-night, mon frère.”
