Volume Ii Part 71 (1/2)
”A thousand francs on a boatman! the fellow was in comfortable case!”
said Freluchon.
”This gold was to pay for his crime!” cried Paul; ”this gold condemned to death Honorine and Agathe--two women who have never injured that Thelenie!--I will take it from him to give it back to her.--And now, come, my dear Monsieur Freluchon; let us leave this wretch's body here, and join those who love us.”
”Even so; and we will think of nothing but breakfast; it makes one hollow to row, and I put all my strength into it.”
”Yes, and after that, I have still another duty to perform, and I shall not fail to perform it.”
”Come; see, Ami will be there before us.”
When Chamoureau reached home after the duel, he found Thelenie pacing the floor of her apartment in great agitation. She was counting the hours and minutes. It was not the result of the duel that preoccupied her so, but the result of the plan she had formed to destroy Honorine and Agathe.
Her messenger, after delivering the note with which she had entrusted him, had, in accordance with her orders, lain in ambush a short distance from the house, and had seen the two ladies rush out and hasten in the direction indicated by the note; then he had returned to Madame de Belleville and made his report.
She therefore had no doubt as to the result of her villainy, and yet she felt some inquietude, a vague terror which increased with every moment.
The slightest noise, the approach of some person, the sound of a voice, made her start, and stop abruptly to look about her. Despite her perversity, she found that a crime so detestable as that which she had committed, brings in its train,--if not remorse, when the criminal is too hardened,--at least a terror which is an incessant, never-ending torment.
And so, when her husband appeared before her, Thelenie glared at him in dismay, crying:
”What is it? What do you want of me, monsieur? What have you learned?”
”Be calm, my dear love, pull yourself together. You are very anxious, I see; you are very pale. I thank you for your deep interest in me, but there are as many killed as wounded, and no one is dead.”
”No one dead? What are you talking about, monsieur? Explain yourself, pray.”
”Why, I should think that you might guess. Don't you know, madame, that I have just had a duel--that is to say, I have been a second in a duel--in fact, I have had a duel all the same----”
”Oh, yes! to be sure, it was this morning. Well?”
”Well, we fought with pistols, and we fired first; that was our right.
But we missed our adversary; thereupon he agreed not to fire if we would admit that we did wrong to speak ill of his fiancee and her friend; and we admitted it.”
”Cowards! I recognize you there.”
”That is to say, it was not I, it was Luminot, who----”
”All right! I know enough! leave me.”
And Thelenie turned on her heel, leaving Chamoureau alone.
”That woman is never satisfied,” he said to himself; ”for heaven's sake, was she anxious for the death of one of us? O Eleonore! you never longed for anybody's death!--All the same, I won't say anything to my wife about the appointment those men made to meet us here at five o'clock.
She would be capable of giving orders not to let them in. And those men, especially the owner of the dog, didn't seem inclined to joke. He threatened us with a duel to the death; so that I am determined that he shall be satisfied; and if madame doesn't like it, why, _fichtre_! I'll show my teeth!”
The day seemed endless to Thelenie, who longed for six o'clock to come.
She shut herself up in her bedroom, and kept her eyes fixed upon a clock, waiting impatiently for the moment when she was to see Croque.
But, a few minutes before five, a servant informed her that several callers had arrived, and that her husband desired her to come down to the salon.