de Chalusse?"
"Ah! yes, certainly--an old friend of thirty years' standing." So
saying he advanced toward the door leading into the death-room,
but on reaching the threshold, he cried in sudden terror: "Oh! no,
no, I could not." And with these words he withdrew or rather he
fled from the room down the stairs.
As long as the General had been there, the magistrate had given no
sign of life. But seated beyond the circle of light cast by the
lamps, he had remained an attentive spectator of the scene, and
now that he found himself once more alone with Mademoiselle
Marguerite he came forward, and leaning against the mantelpiece
and looking her full in the face he exclaimed: "Well, my child?"
The girl trembled like a culprit awaiting sentence of death, and
it was in a hollow voice that she replied: "I understood--"
"What?" insisted the pitiless magistrate.
She raised her beautiful eyes, in which angry tears were still
glittering, and then answered in a voice which quivered with
suppressed passion, "I have fathomed the infamy of those two men
who have just left the house. I understood the insult their
apparent generosity conceals. They had questioned the servants,
and had ascertained that two millions were missing. Ah, the
scoundrels! They believe that I have stolen those millions; and
they came to ask me to share the ill-gotten wealth with them.
What an insult! and to think that I am powerless to avenge it! Ah!
the servants' suspicions were nothing in comparison with this.
Pages:
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280