"Positively."
"And yet it was all agreed upon. I have acted wholly under your urgent, pressing advice. How many times have you repeated to me that to live with your husband had become an intolerable torment to you! How many times have you sworn to me that you wished to be mine alone, begging me to procure a large sum of money, and to fly with you!"
"I was in earnest at the time. I have discovered, at the last moment, that it would be impossible for me thus to abandon my country, my daughter, my friends."
"We can take Cesarine with us."
"Do not insist."
He was looking at her with a stupid, gloomy gaze.
"Then," he stammered, "those tears, those prayers, those oaths!"
"I have reflected."
"It is not possible! If you spoke the truth, you would not be here."
"I am here to make you understand that we must give up projects which cannot be realized. There are some social conventionalities which cannot be torn up." As if he scarcely understood what she said, he repeated, "Social conventionalities!"
And suddenly falling at Mme. de Thaller"s feet, his head thrown back, and his hands clasped together, "You lie!" he said. "Confess that you lie, and that it is a final trial which you are imposing upon me. Or else have you, then, never loved me? That"s impossible! I would not believe you if you were to say so. A woman who does not love a man cannot be to him what you have been to me: she does not give herself up thus so joyously and so completely. Have you, then, forgotten every thing? Is it possible that you do not remember those divine evenings in the Rue de Cirque?-those nights, the mere thought of which fires my brain, and consumes my blood."
He was horrible to look at, horrible and ridiculous at the same time. As he wished to take Mme. de Thaller"s hands, she stepped back, and he followed her, dragging himself on his knees.
"Where could you find," he continued, "a man to worship you like me, with an ardent, absolute, blind, mad pa.s.sion? With what can you reproach me? Have I not sacrificed to you without a murmur every thing that a man can sacrifice here below,-fortune, family, honor, -to supply your extravagance, to antic.i.p.ate your slightest fancies, to give you gold to scatter by the handful? Did I not leave my own family struggling with poverty? I would have s.n.a.t.c.hed bread from my children"s mouths in order to purchase roses to scatter under your footsteps. And for years did ever a word from me betray the secret of our love? What have I not endured? You deceived me. I knew it, and I said nothing. Upon a word from you I stepped aside before him whom your caprice made happy for a day. You told me, "Steal!" and I stole. You told me, "Kill!" and I tried to kill."
"Fly. A man who has twelve hundred thousand francs in gold, bank-notes, and good securities, can always get along."
"And my wife and children?"
"Maxence is old enough to help his mother. Gilberte will find a husband: depend upon it. Besides, what"s to prevent you from sending them money?"
"They would refuse it."
"You will always be a fool, my dear!"
To Vincent Favoral"s first stupor and miserable weakness now succeeded a terrible pa.s.sion. All the blood had left his face: his eyes was flashing.
"Then," he resumed, "all is really over?"
"Of course."
"Then I have been duped like the rest,-like that poor Marquis de Tregars, whom you had made mad also. But he, at least saved his honor; whereas I-And I have no excuse; for I should have known. I knew that you were but the bait which the Baron de Thaller held out to his victims."
He waited for an answer; but she maintained a contemptuous silence.
"Then you think," he said with a threatening laugh, "that it will all end that way?"
"What can you do?"
"There is such a thing as justice, I imagine, and judges too. I can give myself up, and reveal every thing."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"That would be throwing yourself into the wolf"s mouth for nothing," she said. "You know better than any one else that my precautions are well enough taken to defy any thing you can do or say. I have nothing to fear."
"Are you quite sure of that?"
"Trust to me," she said with a smile of perfect security.
The former cashier of the Mutual Credit made a terrible gesture; but, checking himself at once, he seized one of the baroness"s hands. She withdrew it quickly, however, and, in an accent of insurmountable disgust, "Enough, enough!" she said.
In the adjoining closet Marius de Tregars could feel Mme. Zelie Cadelle shuddering by his side.
"What a wretch that woman is!" she murmured; "and he-what a base coward!"
The former cashier remained prostrated, striking the floor with his head.
"And you would forsake me," he groaned, "when we are united by a past such as ours! How could you replace me? Where would you find a slave so devoted to your every wish?"
The baroness was getting impatient.
"Stop!" she interrupted,-"stop these demonstrations as useless as ridiculous."
This time he did start up, as if lashed with a whip and, double locking the door which communicated with the ante-chamber, he put the key in his pocket; and, with a step as stiff and mechanical as that of an automaton, he disappeared in the sleeping-room.
"He is going for a weapon," whispered Mme. Cadelle.
It was also what Marius thought.
"Run down quick," he said to Mme. Zelie. "In a cab standing opposite No. 25, you will find Mlle. Gilberte Favoral waiting. Let her come at once."
And, rushing into the parlor, "Fly!" he said to Mme. Thaller.
But she was as petrified by this apparition.
"M. de Tregars!"
"Yes, yes, me. But hurry and go!"
And he pushed her into the closet.
It was but time. Vincent Favoral reappeared upon the threshold of the bedroom. But, if it was a weapon he had gone for, it was not for the one which Marius and Mme. Cadelle supposed. It was a bundle of papers which he held in his hand. Seeing M. de Tregars there, instead of Mme. de Thaller, an exclamation of terror and surprise rose to his lips. He understood vaguely what must have taken place; that the man who stood there must have been concealed in the gla.s.s closet, and that he had a.s.sisted the baroness to escape.
"Ah, the miserable wretch!" he stammered with a tongue made thick by pa.s.sion, "the infamous wretch! She has betrayed me; she has surrendered me. I am lost!"
Mastering the most terrible emotion he had ever felt, "No, no! you shall not be surrendered," uttered M. de Tregars.
Collecting all the energy that the devouring pa.s.sion which had blasted his existence had left him, the former cashier of the Mutual Credit took one or two steps forward.
"Who are you, then?" he asked.
"Do you not know me? I am the son of that unfortunate Marquis de Tregars of whom you spoke a moment since. I am Lucienne"s brother."
Like a man who has received a stunning blow, Vincent Favoral sank heavily upon a chair.
"He knows all," he groaned.
"Yes, all!"
"You must hate me mortally."
"I pity you."
The old cashier had reached that point when all the faculties, after being strained to their utmost limits, suddenly break down, when the strongest man gives up, and weeps like a child.
"Ah, I am the most wretched of villains!" he exclaimed.
He had hid his face in his hands; and in one second,-as it happens, they say, to the dying on the threshold of eternity,-he reviewed his entire existence.
"And yet," he said, "I had not the soul of a villain. I wanted to get rich; but honestly, by labor, and by rigid economy. And I should have succeeded. I had a hundred and fifty thousand francs of my own when I met the Baron de Thaller. Alas! why did I meet him? "Twas he who first gave me to understand that it was stupid to work and save, when, at the bourse, with moderate luck, one might become a millionaire in six months."
He stopped, shook his head, and suddenly, "Do you know the Baron de Thaller?" he asked. And, without giving Marius time to answer, "He is a German," he went on, "a Prussian. His father was a cab-driver in Berlin, and his mother waiting-maid in a brewery. At the age of eighteen, he was compelled to leave his country, owing to some petty swindle, and came to take up his residence in Paris. He found employment in the office of a stock-broker, and was living very poorly, when he made the acquaintance of a young laundress named Affrays, who had for a lover a very wealthy gentleman, the Marquis de Tregars, whose weakness was to pa.s.s himself off for a poor clerk. Affrays and Thaller were well calculated to agree. They did agree, and formed an a.s.sociation,-she contributing her beauty; he, his genius for intrigue; both, their corruption and their vices. Soon after they met, she gave birth to a child, a daughter; whom she intrusted to some poor gardeners at Louveciennes, with the firm and settled intention to leave her there forever. And yet it was upon this daughter, whom they firmly hoped never to see again, that the two accomplices were building their fortune.
"It was in the name of that daughter that Affrays wrung considerable sums from the Marquis de Tregars. As soon as Thaller and she found themselves in possession of six hundred thousand francs, they dismissed the marquis, and got married. Already, at that time, Thaller had taken the t.i.tle of baron, and lived in some style. But his first speculations were not successful. The revolution of 1848 finished his ruin, and he was about being expelled from the bourse, when he found me on his way,-I, poor fool, who was going about everywhere, asking how I could advantageously invest my hundred and fifty thousand francs."
He was speaking in a hoa.r.s.e voice, shaking his clinched fist in the air, doubtless at the Baron de Thaller.
"Unfortunately," he resumed, "it was only much later that I discovered all this. At the moment, M. de Thaller dazzled me. His friends, Saint Pavin and the bankers Jottras, proclaimed him the smartest and the most honest man in France. Still I would not have given my money, if it had not been for the baroness. The first time that I was introduced to her, and that she fixed upon me her great black eyes, I felt myself moved to the deepest recesses of my soul. In order to see her again, I invited her, together with her husband and her husband"s friends, to dine with me, by the side of my wife and children. She came. Her husband made me sign every thing he pleased; but, as she went off, she pressed my hand."
He was still shuddering at the recollection of it, the poor fellow!
"The next day," he went on, "I handed to Thaller all I had in the world; and, in exchange, he gave me the position of cashier in the Mutual Credit, which he had just founded. He treated me like an inferior, and did not admit me to visit his family. But I didn"t care: the baroness had permitted me to see her again, and almost every afternoon I met her at the Tuileries; and I had made bold to tell her that I loved her to desperation. At last, one evening, she consented to make an appointment with me for the second following day, in an apartment which I had rented.
"The day before I was to meet her, and whilst I was beside myself with joy, the Baron de Thaller requested me to a.s.sist him, by means of certain irregular entries, to conceal a deficit arising from unsuccessful speculations. How could I refuse a man, whom, as I thought, I was about to deceive grossly! I did as he wished. The next day Mme. de Thaller became my mistress; and I was a lost man."
Was he trying to exculpate himself? Was he merely yielding to that imperious sentiment, more powerful than the will or the reason, which impels the criminal to reveal the secret which oppresses him?
"From that day," he went on, "began for me the torment of that double existence which I underwent for years. I had given to my mistress all I had in the world; and she was insatiable. She wanted money always, any way, and in heaps. She made me buy the house in the Rue du Cirque for our meetings; and, between the demands of the husband and those of the wife, I was almost insane. I drew from the funds of the Mutual Credit as from an inexhaustible mine; and, as I foresaw that some day must come when all would be discovered, I always carried about me a loaded revolver, with which to blow out my brains when they came to arrest me."
And he showed to Marius the handle of a revolver protruding from his pocket.
"And if only she had been faithful to me!" he continued, becoming more and more animated. "But what have I not endured! When the Marquis de Tregars returned to Paris, and they set about defrauding him of his fortune, she did not hesitate a moment to become his mistress again. She used to tell me, "What a fool you are! all I want is his money. I love no one but you." But after his death she took others. She made use of our house in the Rue du Cirque for purposes of dissipation for herself and her daughter Cesarine. And I-miserable coward that I was!-I suffered all, so much did I tremble to lose her, so much did I fear to be weaned from the semblance of love with which she paid my fearful sacrifices. And now she would betray me, forsake me! For every thing that has taken place was suggested by her in order to procure a sum wherewith to fly to America. It was she who imagined the wretched comedy which I played, so as to throw upon myself the whole responsibility. M. de Thaller has had millions for his share: I have only had twelve hundred thousand francs."
Violent nervous shudders shook his frame: his face became purple. He drew himself up, and, brandishing the letters which he held in his hand, "But all is not over!" he exclaimed. "There are proofs which neither the baron nor his wife know that I have. I have the proof of the infamous swindle of which the Marquis de Tregars was the victim. I have the proof of the farce got up by M. de Thaller and myself to defraud the stockholders of the Mutual Credit!"
"What do you hope for?"
He was laughing a stupid laugh.
"I? I shall go and hide myself in some suburb of Paris, and write to Affrays to come. She knows that I have twelve hundred thousand francs. She will come; and she will keep coming as long as I have any money. And when I have no more:-"
He stopped short, starting back, his arms outstretched as if to repel a terrifying apparition. Mlle. Gilberte had just appeared at the door.
"My daughter!" stammered the wretch. "Gilberte!"
"The Marquise de Tregars," uttered Marius.
An inexpressible look of terror and anguish convulsed the features of Vincent Favoral: he guessed that it was the end.
"What do you want with me?" he stammered.
"The money that you have stolen, father," replied the girl in an inexorable tone of voice,-"the twelve hundred thousand francs which you have here, then the proofs which are in your hands, and, finally your weapons."
He was trembling from head to foot.
"Take away my money!" he said. "Why, that would be compelling me to give myself up! Do you wish to see me in prison?"
"The disgrace would fall back upon your children, sir," said M. de Tregars. "We shall, on the contrary, do every thing in the world to enable you to evade the pursuit of the police."
"Well, yes, then. But to-morrow I must write to Affrays: I must see her!"
"You have lost your mind, father," said Mlle. Gilberte. "Come, do as I ask you."
He drew himself up to his full height.
"And suppose I refuse?"
But it was the last effort of his will. He yielded, though not without an agonizing struggle and gave up to his daughter the money, the proofs and the arms. And as she was walking away, leaning on M. de Tregars" arm, "But send me your mother, at least," he begged. "She will understand me: she will not be without pity. She is my wife: let her come quick. I will not, I can not remain alone."
XII
It was with convulsive haste that the Baroness de Thaller went over the distance that separated the Rue St. Lazare from the Rue de la Pepiniere. The sudden intervention of M. de Tregars had upset all her ideas. The most sinister presentiments agitated her mind. In the courtyard of her residence, all the servants, gathered in a group, were talking. They did not take the trouble to stand aside to let her pa.s.s; and she even noticed some smiles and ironical gigglings. This was a terrible blow to her. What was the matter? What had they heard? In the magnificent vestibule, a man was sitting as she came in. It was the same suspicious character that Marius de Tregars had seen in the grand parlor, in close conference with the baroness.
"Bad news," he said with a sheepish look.
"What?"
"That little Lucienne must have her soul riveted to her body. She is only wounded; and she"ll get over it."
"Never mind Lucienne. What about M. de Tregars?"
"Oh! he is another sharp one. Instead of taking up our man"s provocation, he collared him, and took away from him the note I had sent him."
Mme. de Thaller started violently.
"What is the meaning, then," she asked, "of your letter of last night, in which you requested me to hand two thousand francs to the bearer?"