"Ah! I was afraid--cowardly creature that I was! I dreaded the shame--then Maurice insisted--I sent my child away--your jealousy and my death are my punishment. Poor child! I abandoned him to strangers.
Wretched woman that I am! Ah! this suffering is too horrible. Blanche, remember----"
She spoke again, but her words were indistinct, inaudible.
Blanche frantically seized the dying woman"s arm, and endeavored to arouse her.
"To whom have you confided your child?" she repeated; "to whom?
Marie-Anne--a word more--a single word--a name, Marie-Anne!"
The unfortunate woman"s lips moved, but the death-rattle sounded in her throat; a terrible convulsion shook her form; she slid down from the chair, and fell full length upon the floor.
Marie-Anne was dead--dead, and she had not disclosed the name of the old physician at Vigano to whom she had intrusted her child. She was dead, and the terrified murderess stood in the middle of the room, as rigid and motionless as a statue. It seemed to her that madness--a madness like that which had stricken her father--was developing itself in her brain.
She forgot everything; she forgot that a guest was expected at midnight, that time was flying, and that she would surely be discovered if she did not flee.
But the man who had entered when she cried for aid was watching over her. When he saw that Marie-Anne had breathed her last, he made a slight noise at the door, and thrust his leering face into the room.
"Chupin!" faltered Mme. Blanche.
"In the flesh," he responded. "This was a grand chance for you. Ah, ha!
The business riled your stomach a little, but nonsense! that will soon pa.s.s off. But we must not dawdle here; someone may come in. Let us make haste."
Mechanically the murderess advanced; but Marie-Anne"s dead body lay between her and the door, barring the pa.s.sage. To leave the room it was necessary to step over the lifeless form of her victim. She had not courage to do this, and recoiled with a shudder.
But Chupin was troubled by no such scruples. He sprang across the body, lifted Blanche as if she had been a child and carried her out of the house.
He was drunk with joy. Fears for the future no longer disquieted him, now that Mme. Blanche was bound to him by the strongest of chains--complicity in crime.
He saw himself on the threshold of a life of ease and continual feasting. Remorse for Lacheneur"s betrayal had ceased to trouble him. He saw himself sumptuously fed, lodged and clothed; above all, effectually guarded by an army of servants.
Blanche, who had experienced a feeling of deadly faintness, was revived by the cool night air.
"I wish to walk," said she.
Chupin placed her on the ground about twenty paces from the house.
"And Aunt Medea!" she exclaimed.
Her relative was beside her; like one of those dogs who are left at the door when their master enters a house, she had, instinctively followed her niece on seeing her borne from the cottage by the old poacher.
"We must not stop to talk," said Chupin. "Come, I will lead the way."
And taking Blanche by the arm, he hastened toward the grove.
"Ah! so Marie-Anne had a child," he said, as they hurried on. "She was pretending to be such a saint! But where the devil has she put it?"
"I shall find it."
"Hum! That is easier said than done."
A shrill laugh, resounding in the darkness, interrupted him. He released his hold on the arm of Blanche and a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of defence.
Vain precaution! A man concealed behind a tree bounded upon him, and, plunging his knife four times into the old poacher"s writhing body, cried:
"Holy Virgin! now is my vow fulfilled! I shall no longer be obliged to eat with my fingers!"
"The innkeeper!" groaned the wounded man, sinking to the earth.
For once in her life, Aunt Medea manifested some energy.
"Come!" she shrieked, wild with fear, dragging her niece away. "Come--he is dead!"
Not quite. The traitor had strength to crawl home and knock at the door.
His wife and youngest son were sleeping soundly. His eldest son, who had just returned home, opened the door.
Seeing his father prostrate on the ground, he thought he was intoxicated, and tried to lift him and carry him into the house, but the old poacher begged him to desist.
"Do not touch me," said he. "It is all over with me; but listen; Lacheneur"s daughter has just been poisoned by Madame Blanche. It was to tell you this that I dragged myself here. This knowledge is worth a fortune, my boy, if you are not a fool!"
And he died, without being able to tell his family where he had concealed the price of Lacheneur"s blood.
CHAPTER XLVII
Of all the persons who witnessed Baron d"Escorval"s terrible fall, the abbe was the only one who did not despair.
What a learned doctor would not have dared to do, he did.
He was a priest; he had faith. He remembered the sublime saying of Ambroise Pare: "I dress the wound: G.o.d heals it."
After a six months" sojourn in Father Poignot"s secluded farm-house, M.
d"Escorval was able to sit up and to walk about a little, with the aid of crutches.
Then he began to be seriously inconvenienced by his cramped quarters in the loft, where prudence compelled him to remain; and it was with transports of joy that he welcomed the idea of taking up his abode at the Borderie with Marie-Anne.
When the day of departure had been decided upon, he counted the minutes as impatiently as a school-boy pining for vacation.
"I am suffocating here," he said to his wife. "I am suffocating. Time drags so slowly. When will the happy day come?"
It came at last. During the morning all the articles which they had succeeded in procuring during their stay at the farm-house were collected and packed; and when night came, Poignot"s son began the moving.
"Everything is at the Borderie," said the honest fellow, on returning from his last trip, "and Mademoiselle Lacheneur bids the baron bring a good appet.i.te."
"I shall have one, never fear!" responded the baron, gayly. "We shall all have one."
Father Poignot himself was busily engaged in harnessing his best horse to the cart which was to convey M. d"Escorval to his new home.