"Ah! she gave you ten thousand francs? And when?"
"On the same evening that she gave me the eighty thousand francs intended for the purchase of the estate."
"Perfect! What proof can you furnish that she gave you this sum?"
Lacheneur stood motionless and speechless. He tried to reply, but he could not. If he opened his lips it would only be to pour forth a torrent of menaces, insults, and invectives.
Marie-Anne stepped quickly forward.
"The proof, Monsieur," said she, in a clear, ringing voice, "is the word of this man, who, of his own free will, comes to return to you--to give you a fortune."
As she sprang forward her beautiful dark hair escaped from its confinement, the rich blood crimsoned her cheeks, her dark eyes flashed brilliantly, and sorrow, anger, horror at the humiliation, imparted a sublime expression to her face.
She was so beautiful that Martial regarded her with wonder.
"Lovely!" he murmured, in English; "beautiful as an angel!"
These words, which she understood, abashed Marie-Anne. But she had said enough; her father felt that he was avenged.
He drew from his pocket a roll of papers, and throwing them upon the table: "Here are your t.i.tles," he said, addressing the duke in a tone full of implacable hatred. "Keep the legacy that your aunt gave me, I wish nothing of yours. I shall never set foot in Sairmeuse again.
Penniless I entered it, penniless I will leave it!"
He quitted the room with head proudly erect, and when they were outside, he said but one word to his daughter:
"Well!"
"You have done your duty," she replied; "it is those who have not done it, who are to be pitied!"
She had no opportunity to say more. Martial came running after them, anxious for another chance of seeing this young girl whose beauty had made such an impression upon him.
"I hastened after you," he said, addressing Marie-Anne, rather than M.
Lacheneur, "to rea.s.sure you. All this will be arranged, Mademoiselle.
Eyes so beautiful as yours should never know tears. I will be your advocate with my father--"
"Mademoiselle Lacheneur has no need of an advocate!" a harsh voice interrupted.
Martial turned, and saw the young man, who, that morning, went to warn M. Lacheneur of the duke"s arrival.
"I am the Marquis de Sairmeuse," he said, insolently.
"And I," said the other, quietly, "am Maurice d"Escorval."
They surveyed each other for a moment; each expecting, perhaps, an insult from the other. Instinctively, they felt that they were to be enemies; and the bitterest animosity spoke in the glances they exchanged. Perhaps they felt a presentiment that they were to be champions of two different principles, as well as rivals.
Martial, remembering his father, yielded.
"We shall meet again, Monsieur d"Escorval," he said, as he retired. At this threat, Maurice shrugged his shoulders, and said:
"You had better not desire it."
CHAPTER V
The abode of the Baron d"Escorval, that brick structure with stone tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs which was visible from the superb avenue leading to Sairmeuse, was small and unpretentious.
Its chief attraction was a pretty lawn that extended to the banks of the Oiselle, and a small but beautifully shaded park.
It was known as the Chateau d"Escorval, but that appellation was gross flattery. Any petty manufacturer who had ama.s.sed a small fortune would have desired a larger, handsomer, and more imposing establishment.
M. d"Escorval--and it will be an eternal honor to him in history--was not rich.
Although he had been intrusted with several of those missions from which generals and diplomats often return laden with millions, M. d"Escorval"s worldly possessions consisted only of the little patrimony bequeathed him by his father: a property which yielded an income of from twenty to twenty-five thousand francs a year.
This modest dwelling, situated about a mile from Sairmeuse, represented the savings of ten years.
He had built it in 1806, from a plan drawn by his own hand; and it was the dearest spot on earth to him.
He always hastened to this retreat when his work allowed him a few days of rest.
But this time he had not come to Escorval of his own free will.
He had been compelled to leave Paris by the proscribed list of the 24th of July--that fatal list which summoned the enthusiastic Labedoyere and the honest and virtuous Drouot before a court-martial.
And even in this solitude, M. d"Escorval"s situation was not without danger.
He was one of those who, some days before the disaster of Waterloo, had strongly urged the Emperor to order the execution of Fouche, the former minister of police.
Now, Fouche knew this counsel; and he was powerful.
"Take care!" M. d"Escorval"s friends wrote him from Paris.
But he put his trust in Providence, and faced the future, threatening though it was, with the unalterable serenity of a pure conscience.
The baron was still young; he was not yet fifty, but anxiety, work, and long nights pa.s.sed in struggling with the most arduous difficulties of the imperial policy, had made him old before his time.
He was tall, slightly inclined to _embonpoint_, and stooped a little.
His calm eyes, his serious mouth, his broad, furrowed forehead, and his austere manners inspired respect.
"He must be stern and inflexible," said those who saw him for the first time.
But they were mistaken.
If, in the exercise of his official duties, this truly great man had the strength to resist all temptations to swerve from the path of right; if, when duty was at stake, he was as rigid as iron, in private life he was as una.s.suming as a child, and kind and gentle even to the verge of weakness.
To this n.o.bility of character he owed his domestic happiness, that rare and precious happiness which fills one"s existence with a celestial perfume.
During the bloodiest epoch of the Reign of Terror, M. d"Escorval had wrested from the guillotine a young girl named Victoire-Laure d"Alleu, a distant cousin of the Rhetaus of Commarin, as beautiful as an angel, and only three years younger than himself.