Baron Trigault's Vengeance by Emile Gaboriau (graded readers .TXT) 📖

and she got it. She saw a handsome young fellow and wanted him for her husband; her father, who could refuse her nothing, consented, and now behold the result!”

He had lingered longer at the window than he had meant to do, perhaps because he could see that the young woman was talking with some person in a back room, the door of which stood open. Chupin tried to find out who this person was, but he did not succeed; and he was about to go in when suddenly he saw Madame Paul rise from her seat and say a few words with an air of displeasure. And this time her eyes, instead of turning to the open door, were fixed on a part of the shop directly opposite her. “Is there some one there as well, then?” Chupin wondered.

He changed his post of observation, and, by standing on tiptoe, he succeeded in distinguishing a puny little boy, some three or four years old, and clad in rags, who was playing with the remnants of a toy-horse. The sight of this child increased Chupin’s indignation. “So there’s a child?” he growled. “The rascal not only deserts his wife, but he leaves his child to starve! We may as well make a note of that: and when we settle up our accounts, he shall pay dearly for his villainy.” With this threat he brusquely entered the shop.

“What do you wish, sir?” asked the woman.

“Nothing; I bring you a letter, madame.”

“A letter for me! You must be mistaken.”

“Excuse me; aren’t you Madame Paul?”

“Yes.”

“Then this is for you.” And he handed her the missive which Florent had confided to his care.

Madame Paul took hold of it with some hesitation, eying the messenger suspiciously meanwhile; but, on seeing the handwriting, she uttered a cry of surprise. And, turning toward the open door, she called, “M. Mouchon! M. Mouchon! It’s from him—it’s from my husband; from Paul. Come, come!”

A bald-headed, corpulent man, who looked some fifty years of age, now timidly emerged from the room behind the shop with a cap in his hand. “Ah, well! my dear child,” he said, in an oily voice, “what was I telling you just now? Everything comes to those who know how to wait.”

However she had already broken the seal, and she was now reading the letter eagerly, clapping her hands with delight as she finished its perusal. “He consents!” she exclaimed. “He’s frightened—he begs me to wait a little—look—read!”

But M. Mouchon could not read without his spectacles, and he lost at least two minutes in searching his pockets before he found them. And when they were adjusted, the light was so dim that it took him at least three minutes more to decipher the missive. Chupin had spent this time in scrutinizing—in appraising the man, as it were. “What is this venerable gentleman doing here?” he thought. “He’s a middle class man, that’s evident from his linen. He’s married—there’s a wedding-ring on his finger; he has a daughter, for the ends of his necktie are embroidered. He lives in the neighborhood, for, well dressed as he is, he wears a cap. But what was he doing there in that back room in the dark?”

Meanwhile M. Mouchon had finished reading the letter. “What did I tell you?” he said complacently.

“Yes, you were right!” answered Madame Paul as she took up the letter and read it again with her eyes sparkling with joy. “And now what shall I do?” she asked. “Wait, shall I not?”

“No, no!” exclaimed the elderly gentleman, in evident dismay. “You must strike the iron while it’s hot.”

“But he promises me——”

“To promise and to keep one’s promises are two different things.”

“He wants a reply.”

“Tell him——” But he stopped short, calling her attention with a gesture to the messenger, whose eyes were glittering with intense curiosity.

She understood. So filling a glass with some liquor, she placed it before Chupin, and offered him a cigar, saying: “Take a seat—here’s something to keep you from feeling impatient while you wait here.” Thereupon she followed the old gentleman into the adjoining room, and closed the door.

Even if Chupin had not possessed the precocious penetration he owed to his life of adventure, the young woman and the old gentleman had said enough to enable him to form a correct estimate of the situation. He was certain now that he knew the contents of the letter as perfectly as if he had read it. M. de Coralth’s anger, and his order to make haste, were both explained. Moreover, Chupin distinctly saw what connection there was between the letter to the baroness and the letter to Madame Paul. He understood that one was the natural consequence of the other. Deserted by her husband, Madame Paul had at last become weary of poverty and privations. She had instituted a search for her husband, and, having found him, she had written to him in this style: “I consent to abstain from interfering with you, but only on conditions that you provide means of subsistence for me, your lawfully wedded wife, and for your child. If you refuse, I shall urge my claims, and ruin you. The scandal won’t be of much use to me, it’s true, but at least I shall no longer be obliged to endure the torture of knowing that you are surrounded by every luxury while I am dying of starvation.”

Yes, she had evidently written that. It might not be the precise text; but no doubt it was the purport of her letter. On receiving it, Coralth had become alarmed. He knew only too well that if his wife made herself known and revealed his past, it would be all over with him. But he had no money. Charming young men like the Viscount de Coralth never have any money on hand. So, in this emergency, the dashing young fellow had written to his wife imploring her to have patience, and to the baroness, entreating, or rather commanding her to advance him a certain sum at once.

This was no doubt the case, and yet there was one circumstance which puzzled Chupin exceedingly. In former years, he had heard it asserted that Mademoiselle Flavie was the very personification of pride, and that she adored her husband even to madness. Had this great love vanished? Had poverty and sorrow broken her spirit to such a degree that she was willing to stoop to such shameful concessions! If she were acquainted with her husband’s present life, how did it happen that she did not prefer starvation, or the alms-house and a pauper’s grave to his assistance? Chupin could understand how, in a moment of passion, she might be driven to denounce her husband in the presence of his fashionable acquaintances, how she might be impelled to ruin him so as to avenge herself; but he could not possibly understand how she could consent to profit by the ignominy of the man she loved. “The plan isn’t hers,” said Chupin to himself, after a moment’s reflection. “It’s probably the work of that stout old gentleman.”

There was a means of verifying his suspicions, for on returning into the adjoining room, Madame Paul had not taken her son with her. He was still sitting on the muddy floor of the shop, playing with his dilapidated