"That was the explanation of your conduct?""Yes, that was my reason for giving up public life, ambitious as Iwas. That was the reason why I withdrew from the world; for I thought everybody smiled as I passed. That is why I gave up to you the management of our house and the education of your son, why I became a passionate collector, a half-mad original. And you find out only to-day that you have ruined my life?"There was more compassion than resentment in the manner in which the marchioness looked at her husband.
"You had mentioned to me your unjust suspicions," she replied; "but Ifelt strong in my innocence, and I was in hope that time and my conduct would efface them.""Faith once lost never comes back again.""The fearful idea that you could doubt of your paternity had never even occurred to me."The marquis shook his head.
"Still it was so," he replied. "I have suffered terribly. I loved Jacques. Yes, in spite of all, in spite of myself, I loved him. Had he not all the qualities which are the pride and the joy of a family? Was he not generous and noble-hearted, open to all lofty sentiments, affectionate, and always anxious to please me? I never had to complain of him. And even lately, during this abominable war, has he not again shown his courage, and valiantly earned the cross which they gave him?
At all times, and from all sides, I have been congratulated on his account. They praised his talents and his assiduity. Alas! at the very moment when they told me what a happy father I was, I was the most wretched of men. How many times would I have drawn him to my heart!
But immediately that terrible doubt rose within me, if he should not be my son; and I pushed him back, and looked in his features for a trace of another man's features."His wrath had cooled down, perhaps by its very excess.
He felt a certain tenderness in his heart, and sinking into his chair, and hiding his face in his hands, he murmured,--"If he should be my son, however; if he should be innocent! Ah, this doubt is intolerable! And I who would not moved from here,--I who have done nothing for him,--I might have done every thing at first. It would have been easy for me to obtain a change of venue to free him from this Galpin, formerly his friend, and now his enemy."M. de Boiscoran was right when he said that his wife's pride was unmanageable. And still, as cruelly wounded as woman well could be, she now suppressed her pride, and, thinking only of her son, remained quite humble. Drawing from her bosom the letter which Jacques had sent to her the day before she left Sauveterre, she handed it to her husband, saying,--"Will you read what our son says?"
The marquis's hand trembled as he took the letter; and, when he had torn it open, he read,--"Do you forsake me too, father, when everybody forsakes me? And yet I have never needed your love as much as now. The peril is imminent. Every thing is against me. Never has such a combination of fatal circumstances been seen before. I may not be able to prove my innocence; but you,--you surely cannot think your son guilty of such an absurd and heinous crime! Oh, no! surely not. My mind is made up. I shall fight to the bitter end. To my last breath I shall defend, not my life, but my honor. Ah, if you but knew! But there are things which cannot be written, and which only a father can be told. I beseech you come to me, let me see you, let me hold your hand in mine. Do not refuse this last and greatest comfort to your unhappy son."The marquis had started up.
"Oh, yes, very unhappy indeed!" he cried.
And, bowing to his wife, he said,--
"I interrupted you. Now, pray tell me all."Maternal love conquered womanly resentment. Without a shadow of hesitation, and as if nothing had taken place, the marchioness gave her husband the whole of Jacques's statement as he had made it to M.
Magloire.
The marquis seemed to be amazed.
"That is unheard of!" he said.
And, when his wife had finished, he added,--"That was the reason why Jacques was so very angry when you spoke of inviting the Countess Claudieuse, and why he told you, that, if he saw her enter at one door, he would walk out of the other. We did not understand his aversion.""Alas! it was not aversion. Jacques only obeyed at that time the cunning lessons given him by the countess."In less than one minute the most contradictory resolutions seemed to flit across the marquis's face. He hesitated, and at last he said,--"Whatever can be done to make up for my inaction, I will do. I will go to Sauveterre. Jacques must be saved. M. de Margeril is all-powerful.
Go to him. I permit it. I beg you will do it."The eyes of the marchioness filled with tears, hot tears, the first she had shed since the beginning of this scene.
"Do you not see," she asked, "that what you wish me to do is now impossible? Every thing, yes, every thing in the world but that. But Jacques and I--we are innocent. God will have pity on us. M. Folgat will save us."