File No. 113, Emile Gaboriau [digital e reader txt] 📗

formal dismissal; and M. Verduret, understanding it thus, bowed to M. Fauvel, and left the room, accompanied by Prosper, who had not opened his lips.

They had reached the street before Prosper recovered the use of his tongue.

“I hope you are satisfied, monsieur,” he said, in a gloomy tone; “you exacted this painful step, and I could only acquiesce. Have I gained anything by adding this humiliation to the others which I have suffered?”

“You have not, but I have,” replied M. Verduret. “I could find no way of gaining access to M. Fauvel, save through you; and now I have found out what I wanted to know. I am convinced that M. Fauvel had nothing to do with the robbery.”

“Oh, monsieur!” objected Prosper, “innocence can be feigned.”

“Certainly, but not to this extent. And this is not all. I wished to find out if M. Fauvel would be accessible to certain suspicions. I am now confident that he is.”

Prosper and his companion had stopped to talk more at their ease, near the corner of the Rue Lafitte, in the middle of a large space which had lately been cleared by pulling down an old house.

M. Verduret seemed to be anxious, and was constantly looking around as if he expected someone.

He soon uttered an exclamation of satisfaction.

At the other end of the vacant space, he saw Cavaillon, who was bareheaded and running.

He was so excited that he did not even stop to shake hands with Prosper, but darted up to M. Verduret, and said:

“They have gone, monsieur!”

“How long since?”

“They went about a quarter of an hour ago.”

“The deuce they did! Then we have not an instant to lose.”

He handed Cavaillon the note he had written some hours before at Prosper’s house.

“Here, send him this, and then return at once to your desk; you might be missed. It was very imprudent in you to come out without your hat.”

Cavaillon ran off as quickly as he had come. Prosper was stupefied.

“What!” he exclaimed. “You know Cavaillon?”

“So it seems,” answered M. Verduret with a smile, “but we have no time to talk; come on, hurry!”

“Where are we gong now?”

“You will soon know; walk fast!”

And he set the example by striding rapidly toward the Rue Lafayette. As they went along he continued talking more to himself than to Prosper.

“Ah,” said he, “it is not by putting both feet in one shoe, that one wins a race. The track once found, we should never rest an instant. When the savage discovers the footprints of an enemy, he follows it persistently, knowing that falling rain or a gust of wind may efface the footprints at any moment. It is the same with us: the most trifling incident may destroy the traces we are following up.”

M. Verduret suddenly stopped before a door bearing the number 81.

“We are going in here,” he said to Prosper; “come.”

They went up the steps, and stopped on the second floor, before a door over which was a large sign, “Fashionable Dressmaker.”

A handsome bell-rope hung on the wall, but M. Verduret did not touch it. He tapped with the ends of his fingers in a peculiar way, and the door instantly opened as if someone had been watching for his signal on the other side.

The door was opened by a neatly dressed woman of about forty. She quietly ushered M. Verduret and Prosper into a neat dining-room with several doors opening into it.

This woman bowed humbly to M. Verduret, as if he were some superior being.

He scarcely noticed her salutation, but questioned her with a look. His look said:

“Well?”

She bowed affirmatively:

“Yes.”

“In there?” asked M. Verduret in a low tone, pointing to one of the doors.

“No,” said the woman in the same tone, “over there, in the little parlor.”

M. Verduret opened the door pointed out, and pushed Prosper into the little parlor, whispering, as he did so:

“Go in, and keep your presence of mind.”

But his injunction was useless. The instant he cast his eyes around the room into which he had so unceremoniously been pushed without any warning, Prosper exclaimed, in a startled voice:

“Madeleine!”

It was indeed M. Fauvel’s niece, looking more beautiful than ever. Hers was that calm, dignified beauty which imposes admiration and respect.

Standing in the middle of the room, near a table covered with silks and satins, she was arranging a skirt of red velvet embroidered in gold; probably the dress she was to wear as maid of honor to Catherine de Medicis.

At sight of Prosper, all the blood rushed to her face, and her beautiful eyes half closed, as if she were about to faint; she clung to the table to prevent herself from falling.

Prosper well knew that Madeleine was not one of those cold-hearted women whom nothing could disturb, and who feel sensations, but never a true sentiment.

Of a tender, dreamy nature, she betrayed in the minute details of her life the most exquisite delicacy. But she was also proud, and incapable of in any way violating her conscience. When duty spoke, she obeyed.

She recovered from her momentary weakness, and the soft expression of her eyes changed to one of haughty resentment. In an offended tone she said:

“What has emboldened you, monsieur, to be watching my movements? Who gave you permission to follow me, to enter this house?”

Prosper was certainly innocent. He would have given worlds to explain what had just happened, but he was powerless, and could only remain silent.

“You promised me upon your honor, monsieur,” continued Madeleine, “that you would never again seek my presence. Is this the way you keep your word?”

“I did promise, mademoiselle, but–-”

He stopped.

“Oh, speak!”

“So many things have happened since that terrible day, that I think I am excusable in forgetting, for one hour, an oath torn from me in a moment of blind weakness. It is to chance, at least to another will than my own, that I am indebted for the happiness of once more finding myself near you. Alas! the instant I saw you my heart bounded with joy. I did not think, no I could not think, that you would prove more pitiless than strangers have been, that you would cast me off when I am so miserable and heart-broken.”

Had not Prosper been so agitated he could have read in the eyes of Madeleine—those beautiful eyes which had so long been the arbiters of his destiny—the signs of a great inward struggle.

It was, however, in a firm voice that she replied:

“You know me well enough, Prosper, to be sure than no blow can strike you without reaching me at the same time. You suffer, I suffer with you: I pity you as a sister would pity a beloved brother.”

“A sister!” said Prosper, bitterly. “Yes, that was the word you used the day you banished me from your presence. A sister! Then why during three years did you delude me with vain hopes? Was I a brother to you the day we went to Notre Dame de Fourvieres, that day when, at the foot of the altar, we swore to love each other for ever and ever, and you fastened around my neck a holy relic and said, ‘Wear this always for my sake, never part from it, and it will bring you good fortune’?”

Madeleine attempted to interrupt him by a supplicating gesture: he would not heed it, but continued with increased bitterness:

“One month after that happy day—a year ago—you gave me back my promise, told me to consider myself free from any engagement, and never to come near you again. If I could have discovered in what way I had offended you— But no, you refused to explain. You drove me away, and to obey you I told everyone that I had left you of my own accord. You told me that an invincible obstacle had arisen between us, and I believed you, fool that I was! The obstacle was your own heart, Madeleine. I have always worn the medal; but it has not brought me happiness or good fortune.”

As white and motionless as a statue, Madeleine stood with bowed head before this storm of passionate reproach.

“I told you to forget me,” she murmured.

“Forget!” exclaimed Prosper, excitedly, “forget! Can I forget! Is it in my power to stop, by an effort of will, the circulation of my blood? Ah, you have never loved! To forget, as to stop the beatings of the heart, there is but one means—death!”

This word, uttered with the fixed determination of a desperate, reckless man, caused Madeleine to shudder.

“Miserable man!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, miserable man, and a thousand times more miserable than you can imagine! You can never understand the tortures I have suffered, when for a year I would awake every morning, and say to myself, ‘It is all over, she has ceased to love me!’ This great sorrow stared me in the face day and night in spite of all my efforts to dispel it. And you speak of forgetfulness! I sought it at the bottom of poisoned cups, but found it not. I tried to extinguish this memory of the past, that tears my heart to shreds like a devouring flame; in vain. When the body succumbed, the pitiless heart kept watch. With this corroding torture making life a burden, do you wonder that I should seek rest which can only be obtained by suicide?”

“I forbid you to utter that word.”

“You forget, Madeleine, that you have no right to forbid me, unless you love me. Love would make you all powerful, and me obedient.”

With an imperious gesture Madeleine interrupted him as if she wished to speak, and perhaps to explain all, to exculpate herself.

But a sudden thought stopped her; she clasped her hands despairingly, and cried:

“My God! this suffering is beyond endurance!”

Prosper seemed to misconstrue her words.

“Your pity comes too late,” he said. “There is no happiness in store for one like myself, who has had a glimpse of divine felicity, had the cup of bliss held to his lips, and then dashed to the ground. There is nothing left to attach me to life. You have destroyed my holiest beliefs; I came forth from prison disgraced by my enemies; what is to become of me? Vainly do I question the future; for me there is no hope of happiness. I look around me to see nothing but abandonment, ignominy, and despair!”

“Prosper, my brother, my friend, if you only knew–-”

“I know but one thing, Madeleine, and that is, that you no longer love me, and that I love you more madly than ever. Oh, Madeleine, God only knows how I love you!”

He was silent. He hoped for an answer. None came.

But suddenly the silence was broken by a stifled sob.

It was Madeleine’s maid, who, seated in a corner, was weeping bitterly.

Madeleine had forgotten her presence.

Prosper had been so surprised at finding Madeleine when he entered the room, that he kept his eyes fastened upon her face, and never once looked about him to see if anyone else were present.

He turned in surprise and looked at the weeping woman.

He was not mistaken: this neatly dressed waiting-maid was Nina Gypsy.

Prosper was so startled that he became perfectly dumb. He stood there with ashy lips, and a chilly sensation creeping through his veins.

The horror of the situation terrified him. He was there, between the two women who had ruled his fate; between Madeleine, the proud heiress who spurned his love, and Nina Gypsy, the poor girl whose devotion to himself he had so disdainfully rejected.

And she had heard all; poor Gypsy had witnessed the passionate avowal of