When Raoul de Lagors spoke of M. Fauvel’s extraordinary dejection, he had not exaggerated.
Since the fatal day when, upon his denunciation, his cashier had been arrested, the banker, this active, energetic man of business, had been a prey to the most gloomy melancholy, and absolutely refused to take any interest in his affairs, seldom entering the banking-house.
He, who had always been so domestic, never came near his family except at meals, when he would swallow a few mouthfuls, and hastily leave the room.
Shut up in his study, he would deny himself to visitors. His anxious countenance, his indifference to everybody and everything, his constant reveries and fits of abstraction, betrayed the preoccupation of some fixed idea, or the tyrannical empire of some hidden sorrow.
The day of Prosper’s release, about three o’clock, M. Fauvel was, as usual, seated in his study, with his elbows resting on the table, and his face buried in his hands, when his office-boy rushed in, and with a frightened look said:
“Monsieur, the former cashier, M. Bertomy, is here with one of his relatives; he says he must see you on business.”
The banker at these words started up as if he had been shot.
“Prosper!” he cried in a voice choked by anger, “what! does he dare--”
Then remembering that he ought to control himself before his servant, he waited a few moments, and then said, in a tone of forced calmness:
“Ask them to walk in.”
If M. Verduret had counted upon witnessing a strange and affecting sight, he was not disappointed.
Nothing could be more terrible than the attitude of these two men as they stood confronting each other. The banker’s face was almost purple with suppressed anger, and he looked as if about to be struck by apoplexy. Prosper was as pale and motionless as a corpse.
Silent and immovable, they stood glaring at each other with mortal hatred.
M. Verduret curiously watched these two enemies, with the indifference and coolness of a philosopher, who, in the most violent outbursts of human passion, merely sees subjects for meditation and study.
Finally, the silence becoming more and more threatening, he decided to break it by speaking to the banker:
“I suppose you know, monsieur, that my young relative has just been released from prison.”
“Yes,” replied M. Fauvel, making an effort to control himself, “yes, for want of sufficient proof.”
“Exactly so, monsieur, and this want of proof, as stated in the decision of ‘Not proven,’ ruins the prospects of my relative, and compels him to leave here at once for America.”
M. Fauvel’s features relaxed as if he had been relieved of some fearful agony.
“Ah, he is going away,” he said, “he is going abroad.”
There was no mistaking the resentful, almost insulting intonation of the words, “going away!”
M. Verduret took no notice of M. Fauvel’s manner.
“It appears to me,” he continued, in an easy tone, “that Prosper’s determination is a wise one. I merely wished him, before leaving Paris, to come and pay his respects to his former chief.”
The banker smiled bitterly.
“M. Bertomy might have spared us both this painful meeting. I have nothing to say to him, and of course he can have nothing to tell me.”
This was a formal dismissal; and M. Verduret, understanding it thus, bowed to M. Fauvel, and left the room, accompanied by Prosper, who had not opened his lips.
They had reached the street before Prosper recovered the use of his tongue.
“I hope you are satisfied, monsieur,” he said, in a gloomy tone; “you exacted this painful step, and I could only acquiesce. Have I gained anything by adding this humiliation to the others which I have suffered?”
“You have not, but I have,” replied M. Verduret. “I could find no way of gaining access to M. Fauvel, save through you; and now I have found out what I wanted to know. I am convinced that M. Fauvel had nothing to do with the robbery.”
“Oh, monsieur!” objected Prosper, “innocence can be feigned.”
“Certainly, but not to this extent. And this is not all. I wished to find out if M. Fauvel would be accessible to certain suspicions. I am now confident that he is.”
Prosper and his companion had stopped to talk more at their ease, near the corner of the Rue Lafitte, in the middle of a large space which had lately been cleared by pulling down an old house.
M. Verduret seemed to be anxious, and was constantly looking around as if he expected someone.
He soon uttered an exclamation of satisfaction.
At the other end of the vacant space, he saw Cavaillon, who was bareheaded and running.
He was so excited that he did not even stop to shake hands with Prosper, but darted up to M. Verduret, and said:
“They have gone, monsieur!”
“How long since?”
“They went about a quarter of an hour ago.”
“The deuce they did! Then we have not an instant to lose.”
He handed Cavaillon the note he had written some hours before at Prosper’s house.
“Here, send him this, and then return at once to your desk; you might be missed. It was very imprudent in you to come out without your hat.”
Cavaillon ran off as quickly as he had come. Prosper was stupefied.
“What!” he exclaimed. “You know Cavaillon?”
“So it seems,” answered M. Verduret with a smile, “but we have no time to talk; come on, hurry!”
“Where are we gong now?”
“You will soon know; walk fast!”
And he set the example by striding rapidly toward the Rue Lafayette. As they went along he continued talking more to himself than to Prosper.
“Ah,” said he, “it is not by putting both feet in one shoe, that one wins a race. The track once found, we should never rest an instant. When the savage discovers the footprints of an enemy, he follows it persistently, knowing that falling rain or a gust of wind may efface the footprints at any moment. It is the same with us: the most trifling incident may destroy the traces we are following up.”
M. Verduret suddenly stopped before a door bearing the number 81.
“We are going in here,” he said to Prosper; “come.”
They went up the steps, and stopped on the second floor, before a door over which was a large sign, “Fashionable Dressmaker.”
A handsome bell-rope hung on the wall, but M. Verduret did not touch it. He tapped with the ends of his fingers in a peculiar way, and the door instantly opened as if someone had been watching for his signal on the other side.
The door was opened by a neatly dressed woman of about forty. She quietly ushered M. Verduret and Prosper into a neat dining-room with several doors opening into it.
This woman bowed humbly to M. Verduret, as if he were some superior being.
He scarcely noticed her salutation, but questioned her with a look. His look said:
“Well?”
She bowed affirmatively:
“Yes.”
“In there?” asked M. Verduret in a low tone, pointing to one of the doors.
“No,” said the woman in the same tone, “over there, in the little parlor.”
M. Verduret opened the door pointed out, and pushed Prosper into the little parlor, whispering, as he did so:
“Go in, and keep your presence of mind.”
But his injunction was useless. The instant he cast his eyes around the room into which he had so unceremoniously been pushed without any warning, Prosper exclaimed, in a startled voice:
“Madeleine!”
It was indeed M. Fauvel’s niece, looking more beautiful than ever. Hers was that calm, dignified beauty which imposes admiration and respect.
Standing in the middle of the room, near a table covered with silks and satins, she was arranging a skirt of red velvet embroidered in gold; probably the dress she was to wear as maid of honor to Catherine de Medicis.
At sight of Prosper, all the blood rushed to her face, and her beautiful eyes half closed, as if she were about to faint; she clung to the table to prevent herself from falling.
Prosper well knew that Madeleine was not one of those cold-hearted women whom nothing could disturb, and who feel sensations, but never a true sentiment.
Of a tender, dreamy nature, she betrayed in the minute details of her life the most exquisite delicacy. But she was also proud, and incapable of in any way violating her conscience. When duty spoke, she obeyed.
She recovered from her momentary weakness, and the soft expression of her eyes changed to one of haughty resentment. In an offended tone she said:
“What has emboldened you, monsieur, to be watching my movements? Who gave you permission to follow me, to enter this house?”
Prosper was certainly innocent. He would have given worlds to explain what had just happened, but he was powerless, and could only remain silent.
“You promised me upon your honor, monsieur,” continued Madeleine, “that you would never again seek my presence. Is this the way you keep your word?”
“I did promise, mademoiselle, but----”
He stopped.
“Oh, speak!”
“So many things have happened since that terrible day, that I think I am excusable in forgetting, for one hour, an oath torn from me in a moment of blind weakness. It is to chance, at least to another will than my own, that I am indebted for the happiness of once more finding myself near you. Alas! the instant I saw you my heart bounded with joy. I did not think, no I could not think, that you would prove more pitiless than strangers have been, that you would cast me off when I am so miserable and heart-broken.”
Had not Prosper been so agitated he could have read in the eyes of Madeleine--those beautiful eyes which had so long been the arbiters of his destiny--the signs of a great inward struggle.
It was, however, in a firm voice that she replied:
“You know me well enough, Prosper, to be sure than no blow can strike you without reaching me at the same time. You suffer, I suffer with you: I pity you as a sister would pity a beloved brother.”
“A sister!” said Prosper, bitterly. “Yes, that was the word you used the day you banished me from your presence. A sister! Then why during three years did you delude me with vain hopes? Was I a brother to you the day we went to Notre Dame de Fourvieres, that day when, at the foot of the altar, we swore to love each other for ever and ever, and you fastened around my neck a holy relic and said, ‘Wear this always for my sake, never part from it, and it will bring you good fortune’?”
Madeleine attempted to interrupt him by a supplicating gesture: he would not heed it, but continued with increased bitterness:
“One month after that happy day--a year ago--you gave me back my promise, told me to consider myself free from any engagement, and never to come near you again. If I could have discovered in what way I had offended you--But no, you refused to explain. You drove me away, and to obey you I told everyone that I had left you of my own accord. You told me that an invincible obstacle had arisen between us, and I believed you, fool that I was! The obstacle was your own heart, Madeleine. I have always worn the medal; but it has not brought me happiness or good fortune.”
As white and motionless as a statue, Madeleine stood with bowed head before this storm of passionate reproach.
“I told you to forget me,” she murmured.
“Forget!” exclaimed Prosper, excitedly, “forget! Can I forget! Is it in my power to stop, by an effort of will, the circulation of my blood? Ah, you have never loved! To forget, as to stop the beatings of the heart, there is but one means--death!”
This word, uttered with the fixed determination of a desperate, reckless man, caused Madeleine to shudder.
“Miserable man!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, miserable man, and a thousand times more miserable than you can imagine! You can never understand the tortures I have suffered, when for a year I would awake every morning, and say to myself, ‘It is all over, she has ceased to love me!’ This great sorrow stared me in the face day and night in spite of all my efforts to dispel it. And you speak of forgetfulness! I sought it at the bottom of poisoned cups, but found it not. I tried to extinguish this memory of the past, that tears my heart to shreds like a devouring flame; in vain. When the body succumbed, the pitiless heart kept watch. With this corroding torture making life a burden, do you wonder that I should seek rest which can only be obtained by suicide?”
“I forbid you to utter that word.”
“You forget, Madeleine, that you have no right to forbid me, unless you love me. Love would make you all powerful, and me obedient.”
With an imperious gesture Madeleine interrupted him as if she wished to speak, and perhaps to explain all, to exculpate herself.
But a sudden thought stopped her; she clasped her hands despairingly, and cried:
“My God! this suffering is beyond endurance!”
Prosper seemed to misconstrue her words.
“Your pity comes too late,” he said. “There is no happiness in store for one like myself, who has had a glimpse of divine felicity, had the cup of bliss held to his lips, and then dashed to the ground. There is nothing left to attach me to life. You have destroyed my holiest beliefs; I came forth from prison disgraced by my enemies; what is to become of me? Vainly do I question the future; for me there is no hope of happiness. I look around me to see nothing but abandonment, ignominy, and despair!”
“Prosper, my brother, my friend, if you only knew----”
“I know but one thing, Madeleine, and that is, that you no longer love me, and that I love you more madly than ever. Oh, Madeleine, God only knows how I love you!”
He was silent. He hoped for an answer. None came.
But suddenly the silence was broken by a stifled sob.
It was Madeleine’s maid, who, seated in a corner, was weeping bitterly.
Madeleine had forgotten her presence.
Prosper had been so surprised at finding Madeleine when he entered the room, that he kept his eyes fastened upon her face, and never once looked about him to see if anyone else were present.
He turned in surprise and looked at the weeping woman.
He was not mistaken: this neatly dressed waiting-maid was Nina Gypsy.
Prosper was so startled that he became perfectly dumb. He stood there with ashy lips, and a chilly sensation creeping through his veins.
The horror of the situation terrified him. He was there, between the two women who had ruled his fate; between Madeleine, the proud heiress who spurned his love, and Nina Gypsy, the poor girl whose devotion to himself he had so disdainfully rejected.
And she had heard all; poor Gypsy had witnessed the passionate avowal of her lover, had heard him swear that he could never love any woman but Madeleine, that if his love were not reciprocated he would kill himself, as he had nothing else to live for.
Prosper could judge of her sufferings by his own. For she was wounded not only in the present, but in the past. What must be her humiliation and danger on hearing the miserable part which Prosper, in his disappointed love, had imposed upon her?
He was astonished that Gypsy--violence itself--remained silently weeping, instead of rising and bitterly denouncing him.
Meanwhile Madeleine had succeeded in recovering her usual calmness.
Slowly and almost unconsciously she had put on her bonnet and shawl, which were lying on the sofa.
Then she approached Prosper, and said:
“Why did you come here? We both have need of all the courage we can command. You are unhappy, Prosper; I am more than unhappy, I am most wretched. You have a right to complain: I have not the right to shed a tear. While my heart is slowly breaking, I must wear a smiling face. You can seek consolation in the bosom of a friend: I can have no confidant but God.”
Prosper tried to murmur a reply, but his pale lips refused to articulate; he was stifling.
“I wish to tell you,” continued Madeleine, “that I have forgotten nothing. But oh! let not this knowledge give you any hope; the future is blank for us, but if you love me you will live. You will not, I know, add to my already heavy burden of sorrow, the agony of mourning your death. For my sake, live; live the life of a good man, and perhaps the day will come when I can justify myself in your eyes. And now, oh, my brother, oh, my only friend, adieu! adieu!”
She pressed a kiss upon his brow, and rushed from the room, followed by Nina Gypsy.
Prosper was alone. He seemed to be awaking from a troubled dream. He tried to think over what had just happened, and asked himself if he were losing his mind, or whether he had really spoken to Madeleine and seen Gypsy?
He was obliged to attribute all this to the mysterious power of the strange man whom he had seen for the first time that very morning.
How did he gain this wonderful power of controlling events to suit his own purposes?
He seemed to have anticipated everything, to know everything. He was acquainted with Cavaillon, he knew all Madeleine’s movements; he had made even Gypsy become humble and submissive.
Thinking all this, Prosper had reached such a degree of exasperation, that when M. Verduret entered the little parlor, he strode toward him white with rage, and in a harsh, threatening voice, said to him:
“Who are you?”
The stout man did not show any surprise at this burst of anger, but quietly answered:
“A friend of your father’s; did you not know it?”
“That is no answer, monsieur; I have been surprised into being influenced by a stranger, and now--”
“Do you want my biography, what I have been, what I am, and what I may be? What difference does it make to you? I told you that I would save you; the main point is that I am saving you.”
“Still I have the right to ask by what means you are saving me.”
“What good will it do you to know what my plans are?”
“In order to decide whether I will accept or reject them?”
“But suppose I guarantee success?”
“That is not sufficient, monsieur. I do not choose to be any longer deprived of my own free will, to be exposed without warning to trials like those I have undergone to-day. A man of my age must know what he is doing.”
“A man of your age, Prosper, when he is blind, takes a guide, and does not undertake to point out the way to his leader.”
The half-bantering, half-commiserating tone of M. Verduret was not calculated to calm Prosper’s irritation.
“That being the case, monsieur,” he cried, “I will thank you for your past services, and decline them for the future, as I have no need of them. If I attempted to defend my honor and my life, it was because I hoped that Madeleine would be restored to me. I have been convinced to-day that all is at an end between us; I retire from the struggle, and care not what becomes of me now.”
Prosper was so decided, that M. Verduret seemed alarmed.
“You must be mad,” he finally said.
“No, unfortunately I am not. Madeleine has ceased to love me, and of what importance is anything else?”
His heart-broken tone aroused M. Verduret’s sympathy, and he said, in a kind, soothing tone:
“Then you suspect nothing? You did not fathom the meaning of what she said?”
“You were listening,” cried Prosper fiercely.
“I certainly was.”
“Monsieur!”
“Yes. It was a presumptuous thing to do, perhaps; but the end justified the means in this instance. I am glad I did listen, because it has enabled me to say to you, Take courage, Prosper: Mlle. Madeleine loves you; she has never ceased to love you.”
Like a dying man who eagerly listens to deceitful promises of recovery, although he feels himself sinking into the grave, did Prosper feel his sad heart cheered by M. Verduret’s assertion.
“Oh,” he murmured, suddenly calmed, “if only I could hope!”
“Rely upon me, I am not mistaken. Ah, I could see the torture endured by this generous girl, while she struggled between her love, and what she believed to be her duty. Were you not convinced of her love when she bade you farewell?”
“She loves me, she is free, and yet she shuns me.”
“No, she is not free! In breaking off her engagement with you, she was governed by some powerful, irrepressible event. She is sacrificing herself--for whom? We shall soon know; and the secret of her self-sacrifice will discover to us the secret of her plot against you.”
As M. Verduret spoke, Prosper felt all his resolutions of revolt slowly melting away, and their place taken by confidence and hope.
“If what you say were true!” he mournfully said.
“Foolish young man! Why do you persist in obstinately shutting your eyes to the proof I place before you? Can you not see that Mlle. Madeleine knows who the thief is? Yes, you need not look so shocked; she knows the thief, but no human power can tear it from her. She sacrifices you, but then she almost has the right, since she first sacrificed herself.”
Prosper was almost convinced; and it nearly broke his heart to leave this little parlor where he had seen Madeleine.
“Alas!” he said, pressing M. Verduret’s hand, “you must think me a ridiculous fool! but you don’t know how I suffer.”
The man with the red whiskers sadly shook his head, and his voice sounded very unsteady as he replied, in a low tone:
“What you suffer, I have suffered. Like you, I loved, not a pure, noble girl, yet a girl fair to look upon. For three years I was at her feet, a slave to her every whim; when, one day she suddenly deserted me who adored her, to throw herself in the arms of a man who despised her. Then, like you, I wished to die. Neither threats nor entreaties could induce her to return to me. Passion never reasons, and she loved my rival.”
“And did you know this rival?”
“I knew him.”
“And you did not seek revenge?”
“No,” replied M. Verduret with a singular expression, “no: fate took charge of my vengeance.”
For a minute Prosper was silent; then he said:
“I have finally decided, monsieur. My honor is a sacred trust for which I must account to my family. I am ready to follow you to the end of the world; dispose of me as you judge proper.”
That same day Prosper, faithful to his promise, sold his furniture, and wrote a letter to his friends announcing his intended departure to San Francisco.
In the evening he and M. Verduret installed themselves in the “Archangel.”
Mme. Alexandre gave Prosper her prettiest room, but it was very ugly compared with the coquettish little parlor on the Rue Chaptal. His state of mind did not permit him, however, to notice the difference between his former and present quarters. He lay on an old sofa, meditating upon the events of the day, and feeling a bitter satisfaction in his isolated condition.
About eleven o’clock he thought he would raise the window, and let the cool air fan his burning brow; as he did so a piece of paper was blown from among the folds of the window-curtain, and lay at his feet on the floor.
Prosper mechanically picked it up, and looked at it.
It was covered with writing, the handwriting of Nina Gypsy; he could not be mistaken about that.
It was the fragment of a torn letter; and, if the half sentences did not convey any clear meaning, they were sufficient to lead the mind into all sorts of conjectures.
The fragment read as follows:
“of M. Raoul, I have been very im . . . plotted against him, of whom never . . . warn Prosper, and then . . . best friend. he . . . hand of Mlle. Ma . . .”
