Up in the Marquis de Kersaint’s room M. Pierre Chassin, priest and plotter, tired as he was, had been for some time pacing uneasily up and down. He had just returned from the mouth of the Seine and the successful despatch to England of the gold of Mirabel, which (as the agent in Paris at whose house it had been accumulating had indeed come under suspicion) the Abbé had had to pack up with exceeding haste, and take to the coast himself. But though he had just passed some agitated days and nights between Paris and Harfleur, the memory of them was as nothing to that of the shock and emotion he had experienced in the chapel at Mirabel. So that he was thinking at the moment scarcely at all of what he had so dexterously got out of the chateau, but of what he had left in it. And he was fairly distracted. For the twentieth time he cursed the contre-temps which had hurried him away from Mirabel in so untimely a fashion, before he had had opportunity to decide whether he ought or ought not to break his solemn promise to Gaston—that promise renewed at Hennebont. Now he saw clearly that it would have been right to break it, and that if he had only been granted a little longer there he would have done so. And had not such grave issues depended on his getting the money into safety he would willingly have risked his own personal liberty by remaining a few hours longer near the Duchesse; he would even have returned to Mirabel when his errand was accomplished, but for the practical certainty of being arrested and thereby, probably, compromising her. Even now the idea had visited him of writing to her and revealing the Marquis de Kersaint’s identity. But that would indeed be confiding his foster-brother’s jealously-guarded secret to the birds of the air, for he could not use a cipher to Mme de Trélan, and the letter might be intercepted by the Government . . . and it might some day mean Gaston’s life if the Directory knew who he really was. Still, she herself might write to the “Marquis de Kersaint” to make enquiries. God grant it! Or she might come in person, as he had so earnestly pressed.
Yet, if only he had learnt her secret otherwise than under the seal of the confessional, when the knowledge might not be communicated, might not be used. If only he had had the wit to guess it! But we only see what we have some grounds for believing that we shall see. . . . Here he was again, possessed of information he could not impart to the person vitally interested—only in this case time would never show him that he ought to disclose it. His lips were shut, absolutely, till eternity. Some other person must make the revelation—and the only other person who had the necessary knowledge was the Comte de Brencourt.
And M. de Brencourt had escaped, was already back. Perhaps he had told Gaston by this time—for what more natural than that the “kinsman” of the Duc de Trélan should be immediately informed of a fact of such paramount importance to his relative? Something, however, made the priest quite sure that M. de Brencourt had not taken this course—the remembrance of what he knew to be his deliberate lie to the Duchesse de Trélan. After viewing that lie from every side M. Chassin had come to a pretty correct estimate of the motive that had prompted it, and it did not raise his hopes of forcing the Comte to a revelation. Indeed, he almost wondered why M. de Brencourt had returned to the Clos-aux-Grives at all.
He wondered, too, with a growing uneasiness, on what conceivable errand the two gentlemen could have gone out to-night, as, on his own arrival, the exhilarated Artamène had told him they had done. Why should they both go, at such an hour, and without the shadow of an escort?
Then he heard steps and voices in the passage, and stopped his pacing. They were back. His forebodings suddenly seemed ridiculous. The door was opened a little way.
“Thank you, de Brencourt. Good-night,” said Gaston’s voice, with a ring of fatigue in it. “No, thanks; the Abbé will do anything that is necessary.” And he came in.
The light in the room, emanating from a somewhat smoky lamp, did not instantly reveal his state, and he said, in a quite natural manner, “My dear Pierre! This is indeed good! And I am to congratulate you, I think?”
M. Chassin had advanced round the table to take his outstretched left hand. Nearer, he saw; and he no longer took the hand in question—he caught at it.
“Gaston! What in God’s name has happened to you? Here—sit down, for pity’s sake!”
He pulled out the nearest chair from the table, and, far from unwillingly, the wounded man sat down in it, saying as he did so, “But, my dear Pierre, why all this emotion at the sight of a little blood?”
The Abbé suddenly made use of a very unecclesiastical expression. “What has happened to you?” he repeated, standing over him.
“If you must know,” said his foster-brother, leaning back with a little smile in the chair, “I have had the bad luck to be winged by a Blue who must have been lurking in the forest, and the wound, slight in itself, has bled a good deal, that is all.—Sit down, Pierre, and tell me your news. You have succeeded—I can see it!”
How he could see it on the perturbed countenance gazing down at him was not easy to guess.
“Yes, I have succeeded,” returned the priest shortly. “But there is plenty of time to talk about that later. I will see this wound first, if you please. What in the name of fortune were you doing in the forest at this time of night? And who bandaged this up—who was the imbecile who took your coat off you and put it on again instead of slitting up the sleeve?”
For the Marquis, submitting to the inevitable, had stiffly and painfully drawn his arm out of the breast of his coat and laid it on the table.
“One question at a time, mon cher,” he said. “M. de Brencourt was with me, and it was he who was kind enough to do what he could for me. I myself was the imbecile who insisted on getting into my coat again.”
“And why, may I ask?” enquired the Abbé, rapidly unbandaging. “Do you enjoy putting yourself to pain?”
“Does anybody?” retorted his patient. “I did not want to cause more alarm on my return than I needed; that was why.”
“Humph; very thoughtful of you!” commented M. Chassin, glancing at him. “Tch! tch! a nice business! The ball is still there!”
“I believe it is,” admitted M. de Kersaint almost apologetically.
“Can you move your fingers?”
“I can, but I don’t want to.”
“I wonder where it............