The Count's Millions by Emile Gaboriau (big screen ebook reader .txt) 📖

Ah! you should think better of her than that, the dear child!”

He sighed deeply, and in a scarcely audible voice, he asked: “Hasn’t she even sent me a reply?”

“Yes, monsieur, she has; and although it is a great indiscretion on my part, I bring you the letter. Here it is. Now, good-evening. I must go at once. What would become of me if the servants discovered my absence, and found that I had gone out alone——”

She was hurrying away, but Pascal detained her. “Pray wait until I see what she has written,” he said, imploringly. “I shall perhaps be obliged to send her some message in reply.”

Madame Leon obeyed, though with rather bad grace, and not without several times repeating: “Make haste!”—while Pascal ran to a street lamp near by. It was not a letter that Marguerite had sent him, but a short note, written on a scrap of crumpled paper, folded, and not sealed. It was written in pencil; and the handwriting was irregular and indistinct. Still, by the flickering light of the gas, Pascal deciphered the word “Monsieur.” It made him shudder. “Monsieur!” What did this mean? In writing to him of recent times, Marguerite had always said, “My dear Pascal,” or, “My friend.”

Nevertheless, he continued: “I have not had the courage to resist the entreaties made to me by the Count de Chalusse, my father, in his last agony. I have solemnly pledged myself to become the wife of the Marquis de Valorsay.

“One cannot break a promise made to the dying. I shall keep mine, even though my heart break. I shall do my duty. God will give me strength and courage. Forget her whom you loved. She is now the betrothed of another, and honor commands her to forget your very name. Once more, and for the last time, farewell! If you love me, you will not try to see me again. It would only add to my misery.

“Think as though she were dead—she who signs herself—MARGUERITE.”

The commonplace wording of this letter, and the mistakes in spelling that marred it, entirely escaped Pascal’s notice. He only understood one thing, that Marguerite was lost to him, and that she was on the point of becoming the wife of the vile scoundrel who had planned the snare which had ruined him at the Hotel d’Argeles. Breathless, despairing, and half crazed with rage, he sprang toward Madame Leon. “Marguerite, where is she?” he demanded, in a hoarse, unnatural voice; “I must see her!”

“Oh! monsieur, what do you ask? Is it possible? Allow me to explain to you——” But the housekeeper was unable to finish her sentence, for Pascal had caught her by the hands, and holding them in a vicelike grip, he repeated: “I must see Marguerite, and speak to her. I must tell her that she has been deceived; I will unmask the scoundrel who——”

The frightened housekeeper struggled with all her might, trying her best to reach the little gate which was standing open. “You hurt me!” she cried. “Are you mad? Let me go or I shall call for help?” And twice indeed she shouted in a loud voice, “Help! murder!”

But her cries were lost in the stillness of the night. If any one heard them, no one came; still they recalled Pascal to a sense of the situation, and he was ashamed of his violence. He released Madame Leon, and his manner suddenly became as humble as it had been threatening. “Excuse me,” he said, entreatingly. “I am suffering so much that I don’t know what I’m doing. I beseech you to take me to Mademoiselle Marguerite, or else run and beg her to come here. I ask but a moment.”

Madame Leon pretended to be listening attentively; but, in reality, she was quietly manoeuvring to gain the garden gate. Soon she succeeded in doing so, whereupon, with marvellous strength and agility, she pushed Pascal away, and sprang inside the garden, closing the gate after her, and saying as she did so, “Begone, you scoundrel!”

This was the final blow; and for more than a minute Pascal stood motionless in front of the gate, stupefied with mingled rage and sorrow. His condition was not unlike that of a man who, after falling to the bottom of a precipice, is dragging himself up, all mangled and bleeding, swearing that he will yet save himself, when suddenly a heavy stone which he had loosened in his descent, falls forward and crushes him. All that he had so far endured was nothing in comparison with the thought that Valorsay would wed Marguerite. Was such a thing possible? Would God permit such a monstrous iniquity? “No, that shall never be,” he muttered. “I will murder the scoundrel rather; and afterward justice may do whatever it likes with me.”

He experienced that implacable, merciless thirsting for vengeance which does not even recoil before the commission of a crime to secure satisfaction, and this longing inflamed him with such energy that, although he had been so utterly exhausted a few moments before—he was not half an hour in making his way back to his new home. His mother, who was waiting for him with an anxious heart, was surprised by the flush on his cheeks, and the light glittering in his eyes. “Ah, you bring good news,” she exclaimed.

His only answer was to hand her the letter which Madame Leon had given him, saying as he did so, “Read.”

Madame Ferailleur’s eyes fell upon the words: “Once more, and for the last time, farewell!” She understood everything, turned very pale, and in a trembling voice exclaimed: “Don’t grieve, my son; the girl did not love you.”

“Oh, mother! if you knew——”

But she checked him with a gesture, and lifting her head proudly, she said: “I know what it is to love, Pascal—it is to have perfect faith. If the whole world had accused your father of a crime, would a single doubt of his innocence have ever entered my mind? This girl has doubted you. They have told her that you cheated at cards—and she has believed it. You have failed to see that this oath at the bedside of the dying count is only an excuse.”

It was true; the thought had not occurred to Pascal. “My God!” he cried in agony; “are you the only one who believes in my innocence?”

“Without proofs—yes. It must be your task to obtain these proofs.”

“And I shall obtain them,” he rejoined, in a tone of determination. “I am strong now that I have Marguerite’s life to defend—for they have deceived her, mother, or she would never have given me up. Oh! don’t shake your head. I love her, and so I trust her.”