File No. 113 Émile Gaboriau (the best books of all time TXT) 📖

not married, you say. Then we will have to do the best we can, and keep house for ourselves. We will live together like two old bachelors, as we are, and be as happy as kings; we will lead a gay life, and enjoy everything that can be enjoyed. I feel twenty years younger already. The sight of your face renews my youth, and I feel as active and strong as I did the night I swam across the swollen Rhone. And that was long, long ago. The struggles, privations, and anxieties endured since, have been enough to age any man. I feel old, older than my years.”

“What an idea!” interrupted Louis: “why, you look younger than I do.”

“You are jesting.”

“I swear I think you look the younger.”

“Would you have recognized me?”

“Instantly. You are very little changed.”

And Louis was right. He himself had an old, worn-out, used-up appearance; while Gaston, in spite of his gray hair and weather-beaten face, was a robust man, in the full maturity of his prime.

It was a relief to turn from Louis’s restless eyes and crafty smile to Gaston’s frank, honest face.

“But,” said Gaston, “how did you know that I was living? What kind chance guided you to my house?”

Louis was prepared for this question. During his eighteen hours’ ride by the railway, he had arranged all his answers, and had his story ready.

“We must thank Providence for this happy meeting,” he replied. “Three days ago, a friend of mine returned from the baths, and mentioned that he had heard that a Marquis of Clameran was near there, in the Pyrenees. You can imagine my surprise. I instantly supposed that some impostor had assumed our name. I took the next train, and finally found my way here.”

“Then you did not expect to see me?”

“My dear brother, how could I hope for that? I thought that you were drowned twenty-three years ago.”

“Drowned! Mlle. de la Verberie certainly told you of my escape? She promised that she would go herself, the next day, and tell my father of my safety.”

Louis assumed a distressed look, as if he hesitated to tell a sad truth, and said, in a regretful tone:

“Alas! she never told us.”

Gaston’s eyes flashed with indignation. He thought that perhaps Valentine had been glad to get rid of him.

“She did not tell you?” he exclaimed. “Did she have the cruelty to let you mourn my death? to let my old father die of a broken heart? Ah, she must have been very fearful of what the world says. She sacrificed me, then, for the sake of her reputation.”

“But why did you not write to us?” asked Louis.

“I did write as soon as I had an opportunity; and Lafourcade wrote back, saying that my father was dead, and that you had left the country.”

“I left Clameran because I believed you to be dead.”

After a long silence, Gaston arose, and walked up and down the room as if to shake off a feeling of sadness; then he said, cheerfully:

“Well, it is of no use to mourn over the past. All the memories in the world, good or bad, are not worth one slender hope for the future; and thank God, we have a bright future before us. Let us bury the past, and enjoy life together.”

Louis was silent. His footing was not sure enough to risk any questions.

“But here I have been talking incessantly for an hour,” said Gaston, “and I dare say that you have not dined.”

“No, I have not, I confess.”

“Why did you not say so before? I forgot that I had not dined myself. I will not let you starve, the first day of your arrival. I will make amends by giving you some splendid old Cape wine.”

He pulled the bell, and ordered the servant to hasten dinner, adding that it must be an excellent one; and within an hour the two brothers were seated at a sumptuous repast.

Gaston kept up an uninterrupted stream of questions. He wished to know all that had happened during his absence.

“What about Clameran?” he abruptly asked.

Louis hesitated a moment. Should he tell the truth, or not?

“I have sold Clameran,” he finally said.

“The château too?”

“Yes.”

“You acted as you thought best,” said Gaston sadly; “but it seems to me that, if I had been in your place, I should have kept the old homestead. Our ancestors lived there for many generations, and our father lies buried there.”

Then seeing Louis appear sad and distressed, he quickly added:

“However, it is just as well; it is in the heart that memory dwells, and not in a pile of old stones. I myself had not the courage to return to Provence. I could not trust myself to go to Clameran, where I would have to look into the park of La Verberie. Alas, the only happy moments of my life were spent there!”

Louis’s countenance immediately cleared. The certainty that Gaston had not been to Provence relieved his mind of an immense weight.

The next day Louis telegraphed to Raoul:

“Wisdom and prudence. Follow my directions. All goes well. Be sanguine.”

All was going well; and yet Louis, in spite of his skilfully applied questions, had obtained none of the information which he had come to obtain.

Gaston was communicative on every subject except the one in which Louis was interested. Was this silence premeditated, or simply unconscious? Louis, like all villains, was ever ready to attribute to others the bad motives by which he himself would be influenced.

Anything was better than this uncertainty; he determined to ask his brother plainly what his intentions were in regard to money matters.

He thought the dinner-table a favorable opportunity, and began by saying:

“Do you know, my dear Gaston, that thus far we have discussed every topic except the most important one?”

“Why do you look so solemn, Louis? What is the grave subject of which you speak?”

“Our father’s estate. Supposing you to be dead, I inherited, and have disposed of it.”

“Is that what you call a serious matter?” said Gaston with an amused smile.

“It certainly