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

Maxime de Brevan,’ the wretched tool of these wicked women!”

Now at last a terrible light broke upon Henrietta’s mind.

“Then,” she stammered, “these infamous slanders are only put out to conceal an impudent robbery?”

“Yes.”

The young girl’s face showed that she was making a great effort to comprehend; and then she said again,—

“And in that case, the articles in the papers”—

“Were written by the wretches who have robbed your father, yes, madam!” And, shaking his fist with a threatening air, he added,—

“Oh! there is no mistaking it. Since when does this journal exist? Since about six months ago. From the day on which it was established, it was the aim and purpose of the founders to publish in it the articles which you haven’t read.”

Even if she could not well understand by what ingenious combinations such enormous sums could be abstracted, Henrietta was conquered by Papa Ravinet’s sincere and earnest conviction.

“Then,” she went on, “these wretches who have robbed my father now mean to ruin him!”

“They must do it for their own safety. The money has been stolen, you see; therefore there must be a thief. For the world, for the courts, the guilty one will be Count Ville-Handry.”

“For the courts?”

“Alas, yes!”

The poor girl’s eyes went from the brother to the sister with a terrible expression of bewilderment. At last she asked,—

“And do you believe Sarah will allow my father’s name to be thus dishonored,—the name which she bears, and of which she was so proud?”

“She will, perhaps, even insist upon it.”

“Great God! What do you mean? Why should she?”

Seeing her brother’s hesitation, the old lady took it upon herself to answer. She touched the poor girl’s arm, and said in a subdued voice,—

“Because, you see, my poor child, now that Sarah has gotten possession of the fortune she wanted, your father is in her way; because, you see, she wants to be free—do you understand?—free!”

Henrietta uttered a cry of such horror that both the brother and the sister saw at once that she had not misunderstood the horrible meaning of that word “free.”

But, since the blow had fallen, the old dealer did not think the rest need be concealed from Henrietta. He got up, therefore, and, leaning against the mantlepiece, he addressed the poor girl, trembling in all her limbs with terror, and looking at him with a fixed and painful gaze, in these words,—

“You must at last learn to know, madam, the execrable woman who has sworn to ruin you. You see, I know, because I have experienced it myself, of what crimes she is capable; and I see clear in the dark night of her infernal intrigues. I know that this woman with the chaste brow, the open smile, and the soft eyes, has the genius and the instinct of a murderess, and has never counted upon any thing else, but murder for the gratification of her lusts.”

The attitude of the old man, who raised his head on high while his breast swelled, breathed in every one of his sharp and threatening gestures an intense thirst of vengeance. He no longer measured his words carefully; and they overflowed from his lips as they came boiling up under the pressure of his rage.

“Anthony!” said the old lady more than once,—“Anthony, brother! I beseech you!”

But this friendly voice, ordinarily all-powerful, was not even heard by him now. He went on,—

“And now, madam, must I still explain to you the simple and yet formidable plan by which Sarah Brandon has succeeded in obtaining by one effort the immense fortune of the Ville-Handry family? From the first day, she has seen that you were standing between her and those millions; therefore she attacked you first of all. A brave and honest man, M. Daniel Champcey, loved you; he would have protected you; therefore she got him out of the way. The world might have become interested in you, might have taken your side; she beguiled your father, in his blind passion, to calumniate you, to ruin your reputation, and to expose you to the contempt of the world. Still you might have wished to secure a protector, you might have found one. She placed by your side her wretched tool, her spy, a forger, a criminal whom she knew to be able of doing things from which even an accomplished galley-slave would have shrunk with disgust and horror: I mean Maxime de Brevan.”

The very excess, of eruption had restored a part of her energy to Henrietta. She said, therefore,—

“Alas, sir! have I not told you, on, the contrary, that Daniel himself had confided me to the care of M. de Brevan? Have I not told you”—

The old dealer smiled almost contemptuously, and then continued,—

“What does that prove? Nothing but the skill of M. de Brevan in carrying out Sarah Brandon’s orders. In order to get the more completely the mastery over you, he began by obtaining the mastery over M. Champcey. How he succeeded in doing this, I do not know. But we shall know it when we want to know it; for we are going to find out every thing. Thus Sarah was, through M. de Brevan, kept informed of all your thoughts, of all your hopes, of every word you wrote to M. Champcey, and of all he said in reply; for you need not doubt he did answer, and they suppressed the letters, just as they, very probably, intercepted all of your letters which you did not yourself carry to the post-office. Still, as long as you were living under your father’s roof, Sarah could do nothing against your life. She resolved, therefore, to force you to flee; and those mean persecutions of M. Elgin served their purpose. You thought, and perhaps, they think, that bandit really wanted your hand. Undeceive yourself. Your enemies knew your character too well to hope that you would ever break your word, and become faithless to M. Champcey. But they were bent upon handing you over to M. de Brevan. And thus, poor child! you were handed over to him. Maxime had as little idea of marrying you as Sir Thomas; he was quite prepared, when he dared to approach you with open arms, to be rejected with disgust. But he had received orders to add the horror of his persecutions to the horror of your isolation and your destitution.

“For he was quite sure, the scoundrel! that the secret of your sufferings would be well kept. He had carefully chosen the house in which you were to die of hunger and misery. The two Chevassats were bound to be his devoted accomplices, even unto death. This is what gave him the amazing boldness, the inconceivable brutality, to watch your slow agony; no doubt he became quite impatient at your delaying suicide so long.

“Finally you were driven to it; and your death would have realized their atrocious hopes, if Providence had not miraculously stepped in,—that Providence which always, sooner or later, takes its revenge,