第91章
They will avenge themselves; not on your life, perhaps, for they know that you hold that cheap, but on your honour; and your great-uncle will die of grief. In short--""My dear abbe," I said, interrupting him, "you have a habit of seeing everything black at the first glance, when you do not happen to see the sun in the middle of the night. Now let me tell you some things which ought to drive out these gloomy presentiments. I know John Mauprat of old; he is a signal impostor, and, moreover, the rankest of cowards. He will sink into the earth at the sight of me, and as soon as I speak I will make him confess that he is neither Trappist, nor monk, nor saint. All this is a mere sharper's trick. In the old days Ihave heard him making plans which prevent me from being astonished at his impudence now; so I have but little fear of him.""There you are wrong," replied the abbe. "You should always fear a coward, because he strikes from behind while you are expecting him in front. If John Mauprat were not a Trappist, if the papers he showed me were lies, the prior of the Carmelites is too shrewd and cautious to have let himself be deceived. Never would he have espoused the cause of a layman, and never would he mistake a layman for one of his own cloth. However, we must make inquiries; I will write to the superior of the Trappist monastery at once, but I am certain he will confirm what I know already. It is even possible that John Mauprat is a genuine devotee. Nothing becomes such a character better than certain shades of the Catholic spirit. The inquisition is the soul of the Church, and the inquisition should smile on John Mauprat. I firmly believe that he would give himself up to the sword of justice solely for the pleasure of compassing your ruin with his own, and that the desire to found a monastery with your money is a sudden inspiration, the honour of which belongs entirely to the prior of the Carmelites . . .""That is hardly probable, my dear abbe," I said. "Besides, where can these discussions lead us? Let us act. Let us keep the chevalier in sight, so that the unclean beast may not come and poison the calm of his last days. Write to the Trappist superior; I will offer the creature a pension, and when he comes, let us carefully watch his slightest movements. My sergeant, Marcasse, is an admirable bloodhound. Let us put him on the track, and if he can manage to tell us in vulgar speech what he has seen and heard, we shall soon know everything that is happening in the province."Chatting thus, we arrived at the chateau towards the close of day. As I entered the silent building, I was seized with a fond, childish uneasiness, such as may come upon a mother when she leaves her babe a moment. The eternal security which nothing had ever disturbed within the bounds of the old sacred walls, the decrepitude of the servants, the way in which the doors always stood open, so that beggars would sometimes enter the drawing-room without meeting any one and without giving umbrage--the whole atmosphere of peace and trust and isolation --formed a strange contrast to the thoughts of strife, and the cares with which John's return and the prior's threats had filled my mind for some hours. I quickened my pace, and, seized with an involuntary trembling, I crossed the billiard-room. At that moment I thought I saw a dark shadow pass under the windows of the ground floor, glide through the jasmines, and disappear in the twilight. I threw open the door of the drawing-room and stood still. There was not a sound, not a movement. I was going to look for Edmee in her father's room, when Ithought I saw something white moving near the chimney-corner where the chevalier always sat.
"Edmee! Is that you?" I exclaimed.
No one answered. My brow was covered with a cold sweat and my knees were trembling. Ashamed of this strange weakness, I rushed towards the hearth, repeating Edmee's name in agonized tones.
"Have you come at last, Bernard?" she replied, in a trembling voice.
I seized her in my arms. She was kneeling beside her father's arm-chair and pressing to her lips the old man's icy hands.
"Great God!" I cried, when by the dim light in the room I could distinguish the chevalier's livid face. "Is our father dead?""Perhaps," she said, in a stifled voice; "perhaps he has only fainted, please God! But, a light, for Heaven's sake! Ring the bell! He has only been in this state for a moment."I rang in all haste. The abbe now came in, and fortunately we succeeded in bringing my uncle back to life.
But when he opened his eyes, his mind seemed to be struggling against the impressions of a fearful dream.
"Has he gone? Has the vile phantom gone?" he repeated several times.
"Ho, there, Saint-Jean! My pistols! Now, my men! Throw the fellow out of the window!"I began to suspect the truth.
"What has happened?" I said the Edmee, in a low tone. "Who has been here in my absence?""If I told you," answered Edmee, "you would hardly believe it. You would think my father and I were mad. But I will tell you everything presently; let us attend to him."With her soft words and loving attentions she succeeded in calming the old man. We carried him to his room, and he fell into a quiet sleep.
When Edmee had gently withdrawn her hand from his and lowered the wadded curtain over his head, she joined the abbe and myself, and told us that a quarter of an hour before we returned a mendicant friar had entered the drawing-room, where, as usual, she was embroidering near her father, who had fallen asleep. Feeling no surprise at an incident which frequently happened, she had risen to get her purse from the mantel-piece, at the same time addressing a few words to the monk. But just as she was turning round to offer him an alms the chevalier had awakened with a start, and eyeing the monk from head to foot, had cried in a tone half of anger and half of fear:
"What the devil are you doing here in that garb?"Thereupon Edmee had looked at the monk's face and had recognised . . .