"Alas! abbe, it is the loss of my appet.i.te."
"Be it so, my brother, and who has caused the loss of your appet.i.te?"
"That wretch!" cried the canon, irritated, "that infamous Captain Horace."
"That is true; well, I will always preach to you the forgiveness of injuries, my dear brother; but, too, I must recommend to you an inexorable severity against sacrilege."
"What sacrilege, abbe?"
"Have not Captain Horace and one of his sailors dared to leap over the sacred walls of the convent where you had shut up your niece? Have they not had the audacity to carry away the miserable girl, whom happily we have recaptured? This enormity in other times might have been punished with fire, and one day it will be punished with eternal fire."
"And this villain of a captain will only have what he deserves," cried Dom Diego, ferociously; "yes, he will cook--he will roast on Satan"s spit by a slow fire, all eternity, where he will be moistened with gravy of melted lead, after having been larded with red-hot iron. Such will be his punishment, I earnestly hope."
"So may it be, but while waiting this eternal expiation, why not punish him here below? Why have you had the culpable weakness to give up your demand for the arrest of this miscreant? I need not remind you that this man is the first cause of all that you call your ills,--that is, the loss of your appet.i.te."
"That is true, he is a great criminal."
"Then, my brother, why, I ask again, have you been so weak as to renounce your pursuit of him? You do not reply, you seem to be embarra.s.sed."
"It is that--"
"It is what?"
"Alas, abbe, you are going to scold me, to lecture me again."
"Explain yourself, my brother."
"What shall I say? It is his fault, for, since he has disappeared, all my thoughts come from him and return to him."
"Who, he?"
"This angel or this demon."
"What angel--what demon?"
"The cook."
"Again the cook?"
"Always!"
"Come," said the abbe, shrugging his shoulders, "do explain yourself, my brother."
"Well, then, abbe, know that the day after the fatal day when I breakfasted as I shall never breakfast again, alas! when my despair was at its height, I received a mysterious note."
"And what did this contain, my brother?"
"Here it is."
"You have kept it."
"It is perhaps his cherished handwriting," murmured the canon, with a melancholy accent.
And he handed the note to Abbe Ledoux, who read as follows:
"MY LORD CANON:--There remains perhaps one means of seeing me again.
"You now know the delights with which I am able to surfeit you.
"You also know the terrible torments which my absence inflicts.
"Before yesterday, not having felt these torments in all their anguish, you presumed to refuse what I expected of you.
"To-day, as past sufferings will be a guarantee for the sufferings to come, listen to me.
"You can put an end to these sufferings.
"For that, you must grant me three things.
"I demand the first to-day; in eight days the second; in fifteen days the third.
"I proportion the importance of my demands to the progress of your suffering, because the more you suffer, the more you will regret me and show yourself docile.
"Here is my first demand:
"Send back by the bearer of this note, your nonsuit of all complaint against Captain Horace.
"Give me by this act a proof of your desire to satisfy me, and then you will be able to hope that you may find again
APPEt.i.tE."
CHAPTER X.
When Abbe Ledoux had finished reading this note, he reflected a moment in silence, while the canon, repeating the last words of the letter, said, bitterly:
""And you will be able to hope to find Appet.i.te!" What cruel irony in this pitiless pun!"
"That is singular," said the abbe, thoughtfully. "Did you see the bearer of this note, Dom Diego?"
"Did I see him? Could I lose this opportunity to speak of _him?"_
"Well?"