The Clique of Gold, Emile Gaboriau [if you liked this book .txt] 📗

secret meetings: he had told her to be ready to start for Philadelphia the next morning.

“The crisis had come. They must choose now between two things,—either to flee that very day, or be separated forever.

“Ah! never had Sarah been so beautiful as at this moment, when she seemed to be maddened by grief; never had her whole personal beauty exhaled such powerful, such irresistible charms. Her breath went and came, causing her almost to sob at every respiration; and big tears, like scattered beads from a chaplet of pearls, rolled down her pale cheeks.

“Malgat stood a moment before her, stunned by the blow; and the imminence of the danger extorted from him a confession of the reasons that had made him hesitate so long. He told her, cruelly humiliated by the avowal, that he had no money.

“But she rose when she heard it, as if she had been stung by an insult, and repeated with crushing irony,—

“‘No money? No money?’

“And when Malgat, more heartily ashamed of his poverty than he could have been of a crime, blushed to the roots of his hair, she pointed at the immense safe, which overflowed with gold and bank-notes, and said,—

“‘And what is all that?’

“Malgat jumped up, and stood before the safe, his arms far outstretched, as if to defend it, and said in an accent of ineffable terror,—

“‘What are you thinking of? And my honor?’

“This was to be his last effort to preserve his honor. Sarah looked him straight in the face, and said slowly,—

“‘And my honor! My honor is nothing to you? Do I not give myself? Do you mean to drive a bargain?’

“Great God! She said this with an accent and with a look which would have tempted an angel. Malgat fell helpless into a chair.

“Then she came close up to him, and, casting upon him those burning glances which blazed with superhuman audacity, she sighed,—

“‘If you loved me really! Ah, if you really loved me!’

“And she bent over him, tremulous with passion, watching his features so closely, that their lips nearly touched.

“‘If you loved me as I love you,’ she whispered again.

“It was all over; Malgat was lost. He drew Sarah towards him, and said, kissing her,—

“‘Very well then. Yes!’

“She immediately disengaged herself, and with eager hands seized one parcel of bank-notes after another, pushing them into a little morocco bag which she held in her hand. And, when the bag was full, she said,—

“‘Now we are safe. To-night at ten o’clock, at the gate of the court- yard, with a carriage. To-morrow, at daybreak, we shall be out of France, and free. Now we are bound to each other forever,—and I love you!’

“And she went away. And he let her go away.”

The old gentleman had become ghastly white, his few hairs seemed to stand on end, and large drops of perspiration inundated his face as he swallowed at a gulp a cup of tea, and then went on, laughing bitterly,—

“You suppose, no doubt, that, when Sarah had left him, Malgat came to himself? By no means. It seemed as if, with that kiss, with which she had paid him for his crime, the infamous creature had inspired him with the same genius for evil that was in her.

“Far from repenting, he rejoiced at what had been done; and when he learned, that, on the following day, the board of directors were to meet to examine the books, he laughed at the faces they would make; for I told you he was mad. With all the coolness of a hardened thief, he calculated the total amount of what had been abstracted: it was four hundred thousand francs. Immediately, in order to conceal the true state of things, he took his books, and, with almost diabolic skill, altered the figures, and changed the entries, so as to make it appear that the defalcation was of long date, and that various sums had been abstracted for several months. When he had finished his fearful task, he wrote to the board a hypocritical letter, in which he stated that he had robbed the safe in order to pay his differences on ‘Change, and that now, when he could no longer conceal his crime, he was going to commit suicide. When this was done, he left his office, as if nothing had happened.

“The proof that he acted under the incomprehensible influence of a kind of hallucination is this, that he felt neither remorse nor fear. As he was resolved not to return to his house, nor to encumber himself with luggage, he dined at a restaurant, spent a few minutes at a theatre, and then posted his letter to the board of directors, so that it might reach them early in the morning.

“At ten o’clock he knocked at the gate of the house in Circus Street. A servant came and opened, saying in a mysterious manner,—

“‘Please go up. The young lady is waiting.’

“A terrible presentiment seized him at that moment, and chilled him to the marrow in his bones. In the parlor Sarah was sitting on a sofa, and Maxime de Brevan by her side. They were laughing so loud, that he heard them in the anteroom. When Malgat entered, she raised her head with a dissatisfied air, and said rudely,—

“‘Ah! It is you. What do you want now?’

“Surely, such a reception ought to have disabused the unfortunate man. But no! When he began to stammer some explanations, she interrupted him, saying,—

“‘Let us speak frankly. You come to run away with me, don’t you? Well, that is simply nonsense. Look at yourself, my good friend, and tell me if a girl such as I am can be in love with a man like you. As to that small loan, it does not pay me, I assure you, by half, for the sublime little comedy which I have had to play. Believe me, at all events, when I tell you that I have taken all my precautions so as not to be troubled by anything you may say or do. And now, sir, I wish you good-evening; or must I go?’

“Ah! she might have spoken a long time yet, and Malgat would not have thought of interrupting her. The fearful truth broke all of a sudden upon him; and he felt as if the whole world were going to pieces. He understood the enormity of the crime; he discerned the fatal consequences, and knew he was ruined. A thousand voices arose from his conscience, telling him, ‘You are a thief! You are a forger! You are dishonored!’

“But, when he saw Sarah Brandon get up to leave the room, he was seized with an attack of furious rage, and threw himself upon her, crying,—

“‘Yes, I am lost; but you shall die, Sarah Brandon!’

“Poor fool! who did not know that these wretches had, of course, foreseen his wrath, and prepared for the emergency. Supple, like one of those lost children of the gutter among