Monsieur Lecoq Émile Gaboriau (popular books of all time .txt) 📖

deferentially. But he did not give them time to utter a word.

“Who permitted you to enter here?” he said, savagely, “and what do you desire? They sent you to play the spy on me, did they? Leave, I tell you!”

The three farmers were even more bewildered and dismayed than the gardener had been, and their remarks must have been interesting.

But M. Lacheneur could not hear them. He had opened the door of the grand salon, and dashed in, followed by his frightened daughter.

Never had Marie-Anne seen her father in such a mood; and she trembled, her heart torn by the most frightful presentiments.

She had heard it said that oftentimes, under the influence of some dire calamity, unfortunate men have suddenly lost their reason entirely; and she was wondering if her father had become insane.

It would seem, indeed, that such was the case. His eyes flashed, convulsive shudders shook his whole body, a white foam gathered on his lips.

He made the circuit of the room as a wild beast makes the circuit of his cage, uttering harsh imprecations and making frenzied gestures.

His actions were strange, incomprehensible. Sometimes he seemed to be trying the thickness of the carpet with the toe of his boot; sometimes he threw himself upon a sofa or a chair, as if to test its softness.

Occasionally, he paused abruptly before some one of the valuable pictures that covered the walls, or before a bronze. One might have supposed that he was taking an inventory, and appraising all the magnificent and costly articles which decorated this apartment, the most sumptuous in the château.

“And I must renounce all this!” he exclaimed, at last.

These words explained everything.

“No, never!” he resumed, in a transport of rage; “never! never! I cannot! I will not!”

Now Marie-Anne understood it all. But what was passing in her father’s mind? She wished to know; and, leaving the low chair in which she had been seated, she went to her father’s side.

“Are you ill, father?” she asked, in her sweet voice; “what is the matter? What do you fear? Why do you not confide in me?⁠—Am I not your daughter? Do you no longer love me?”

At the sound of this dear voice, M. Lacheneur trembled like a sleeper suddenly aroused from the terrors of a nightmare, and he cast an indescribable glance upon his daughter.

“Did you not hear what Chupin said to me?” he replied, slowly. “The Duc de Sairmeuse is at Montaignac; he will soon be here; and we are dwelling in the château of his fathers, and his domain has become ours!”

The vexed question regarding the national lands, which agitated France for thirty years, Marie understood, for she had heard it discussed a thousand times.

“Ah, well, dear father,” said she, “what does that matter, even if we do hold the property? You have bought it and paid for it, have you not? So it is rightfully and lawfully ours.”

M. Lacheneur hesitated a moment before replying.

But his secret suffocated him. He was in one of those crises in which a man, however strong he may be, totters and seeks some support, however fragile.

“You would be right, my daughter,” he murmured, with drooping head, “if the money that I gave in exchange for Sairmeuse had really belonged to me.”

At this strange avowal the young girl turned pale and recoiled a step.

“What?” she faltered; “this gold was not yours, my father? To whom did it belong? From whence did it come?”

The unhappy man had gone too far to retract.

“I will tell you all, my daughter,” he replied, “and you shall judge. You shall decide. When the Sairmeuse family fled from France, I had only my hands to depend upon, and as it was almost impossible to obtain work, I wondered if starvation were not near at hand.

“Such was my condition when someone came after me one evening to tell me that Mademoiselle Armande de Sairmeuse, my godmother, was dying, and wished to speak with me. I ran to the château.

“The messenger had told the truth. Mademoiselle Armande was sick unto death. I felt this on seeing her upon her bed, whiter than wax.

“Ah! if I were to live a hundred years, never should I forget her face as it looked at that moment. It was expressive of a strength of will and an energy that would hold death at bay until the task upon which she had determined was performed.

“When I entered the room I saw a look of relief appear upon her countenance.

“ ‘How long you were in coming!’ she murmured faintly.

“I was about to make some excuse, when she motioned me to pause, and ordered the women who surrounded her to leave the room.

“As soon as we were alone:

“ ‘You are an honest boy,’, said she, ‘and I am about to give you a proof of my confidence. People believe me to be poor, but they are mistaken. While my relatives were gayly ruining themselves, I was saving the five hundred louis which the duke, my brother, gave me each year.’

“She motioned me to come nearer, and to kneel beside her bed.

“I obeyed, and Mademoiselle Armande leaned toward me, almost glued her lips to my ear, and added:

“ ‘I possess eighty thousand francs.’

“I felt a sudden giddiness, but my godmother did not notice it.

“ ‘This amount,’ she continued, ‘is not a quarter part of the former income from our family estates. But now, who knows but it will, one day, be the only resource of the Sairmeuse? I am going to place it in your charge, Lacheneur. I confide it to your honor and to your devotion. The estates belonging to the emigrants are to be sold, I hear. If such an act of injustice is committed, you will probably be able to purchase our property for seventy thousand francs. If the property is sold by the government, purchase it; if the lands belonging to the emigrants are not sold, take that amount to the duke, my brother, who is with the Count d’Artois. The surplus, that is to say, the ten thousand francs