File No. 113 by Emile Gaboriau (ebook reader browser TXT) 📖

It was not without the most painful suffering and self-condemnation that Mme. Fauvel submitted to the will of the pitiless Marquis of Clameran.

She had used every argument and entreaty to soften him; but he merely looked upon her with a triumphant, sneering smile, when she knelt at his feet, implored him to be merciful and spare her the shame and remorse of committing another crime. Spare her this torture, and she would grant anything else he wished, give Raoul all she possessed while alive, and insure him a handsome competency after her death.

Alas! neither tears nor prayers moved him. Disappointed, and almost desperate, she sought the intercession of her son.

Raoul was in a state of furious indignation at the sight of his mother’s distress, and hastened to demand an apology from Clameran.

But he had reckoned without his host. He soon returned with downcast eyes, and moodily angry at his own powerlessness, declaring that safety demanded a complete surrender to the tyrant.

Now only did the wretched woman fully fathom the abyss into which she was being dragged, and clearly see the labyrinth of crime of which she was becoming the victim.

And all this suffering was the consequence of a fault, an interview granted to Gaston. Ever since that fatal day she had been vainly struggling against the implacable logic of events. Her life had been spent in trying to overcome the past, and now it had risen to crush her.

The hardest thing of all to do, the act that most wrung her heart, was showing to her husband the forged letter from St. Remy, and saying that she expected to see her rich young nephew in a day or two. ‘Tis hard to deceive those who trust and love us.

But words cannot paint the torture she endured on the evening that she introduced Raoul to her family, and saw the honest banker cordially shake hands with this nephew of whom he had never heard before, and affectionately say to him:

“I am not surprised that a rich young fellow like yourself should prefer Paris to St. Remy, and nothing will give me more pleasure than your visit; for I seldom have an opportunity of welcoming a relative of my dear wife, for whose sake I take an interest in everyone coming from St. Remy.”

Raoul exerted his utmost to deserve this warm reception.

If his early education had been neglected, and he lacked those delicate refinements of manner and conversation which home influence imparts, his superior tact concealed these defects.

He possessed the happy faculty of reading characters, and adapting his conversation to the minds of his listeners.

Before a week had gone by, he was a favorite with M. Fauvel, intimate with Abel and Lucien, and inseparable from Prosper Bertomy, the cashier, who spent all his evenings with the banker’s family.

Charmed at the favorable impression made by Raoul, Mme. Fauvel recovered comparative ease of mind, and at times almost congratulated herself upon having obeyed the marquis, as she saw all around her contented and happy. Once more she began to hope that peace had not deserted her, that God had forgiven her.

Alas! she rejoiced too soon.

Raoul’s intimacy with his cousins threw him among a set of rich young men, whose extravagance he not only imitated, but surpassed. He daily grew more dissipated and reckless. Gambling, racing, expensive suppers, made money slip through his fingers like grains of sand.

This proud young man, whose sensitive delicacy not long since made him refuse to accept aught save affection from his mother, now never approached her without demanding large sums of money.

At first she gave with pleasure, not stopping to count the rolls of notes she would eagerly run to bring him. But as he each time increased his demands, until they finally reached a sum far larger than she could bestow, her eyes were opened to the ruinous effects of her lavish generosity.

This rich woman, whose magnificent diamonds, elegant toilets, and superb equipages were the admiration and envy of Paris, now suffered the keenest torture. She had no more money to give her son; and what so pains the female heart as being unable to gratify the wishes of a beloved being?

Her husband never thought of giving her a fixed sum for the year’s expenses, or of asking how she disposed of her money. The day after the wedding he gave her a key to his secretary, and told her, that what was his was hers, to use as she thought best. And, ever since, she had been in the habit of freely taking all the money necessary for keeping up the hospitable, elegant house over which she so gracefully presided; for her own dress, and many charitable purposes that the world never knew of.

But the fact of her having always been so modest in her personal expenses that her husband used to jestingly say that he was afraid she would end by being