Part 11 (2/2)
The mayor bowed to the company and retired; but neither the abbe nor Mademoiselle Goujet stirred. The servants were too uneasy not to watch the fate of their young mistress. Madame d'Hauteserre, who, from the moment of Laurence's entrance, had studied her with the anxiety of a mother, rose, took her by the arm, led her aside, and said in a low voice, ”Have you seen them?”
”Do you think I could have let your sons be under this roof without your knowing it?” replied Laurence. ”Durieu,” she added, ”see if it is possible to save my poor Stella; she is still breathing.”
”She must have gone a great distance,” said Corentin.
”Forty miles in three hours,” she answered, addressing the abbe, who watched her with amazement. ”I started at half-past nine, and it was well past one when I returned.”
She looked at the clock which said half-past two.
”So you don't deny that you have ridden forty miles?” said Corentin.
”No,” she said. ”I admit that my cousins, in their perfect innocence, expected not to be excluded from the amnesty, and were on their way to Cinq-Cygne. When I found that the Sieur Malin was plotting to injure them, I went to warn them to return to Germany, where they will be before the telegraph can have guarded the frontier. If I have done wrong I shall be punished for it.”
This answer, which Laurence had carefully considered, was so probable in all its parts that Corentin's convictions were shaken. In that decisive moment, when every soul present hung suspended, as it were, on the faces of the two adversaries, and all eyes turned from Corentin to Laurence and from Laurence to Corentin, again the gallop of a horse, coming from the forest, resounded on the road and from there through the gates to the paved courtyard. Frightful anxiety was stamped on every face.
Peyrade entered, his eyes gleaming with joy. He went hastily to Corentin and said, loud enough for the countess to hear him: ”We have caught Michu.”
Laurence, to whom the agony, fatigue, and tension of all her intellectual faculties had given an unusual color, turned white and fell back almost fainting on a chair. Madame Durieu, Mademoiselle Goujet, and Madame d'Hauteserre sprang to help her, for she was suffocating. She signed to cut the frogging of her habit.
”Duped!” said Corentin to Peyrade. ”I am certain now they are on their way to Paris. Change the orders.”
They left the room and the house, placing one gendarme on guard at the door of the salon. The infernal cleverness of the two men had gained a terrible advantage by taking Laurence in the trap of a not uncommon trick.
CHAPTER IX. FOILED
At six o'clock in the morning, as day was dawning, Corentin and Peyrade returned. Having explored the covered way they were satisfied that horses had pa.s.sed through it to reach the forest. They were now awaiting the report of the captain of gendarmerie sent to reconnoitre the neighborhood. Leaving the chateau in charge of a corporal, they went to the tavern at Cinq-Cygne to get their breakfast, giving orders that Gothard, who never ceased to reply to all questions with a burst of tears, should be set at liberty, also Catherine, who still continued silent and immovable. Catherine and Gothard went to the salon to kiss the hands of their mistress, who lay exhausted on the sofa; Durieu also went in to tell her that Stella would recover, but needed great care.
The mayor, uneasy and inquisitive, met Peyrade and Corentin in the village. He declared that he could not allow such important officials to breakfast in a miserable tavern, and he took them to his own house. The abbey was only three quarters of a mile distant. On the way, Peyrade remarked that the corporal of Arcis had sent no news of Michu or of Violette.
”We are dealing with very able people,” said Corentin; ”they are stronger than we. The priest no doubt has a finger in all this.”
Just as the mayor's wife was ushering her guests into a vast dining-room (without any fire) the lieutenant of gendarmes arrived with an anxious air.
”We met the horse of the corporal of Arcis in the forest without his master,” he said to Peyrade.
”Lieutenant,” cried Corentin, ”go instantly to Michu's house and find out what is going on there. They must have murdered the corporal.”
This news interfered with the mayor's breakfast. Corentin and Peyrade swallowed their food with the rapidity of hunters halting for a meal, and drove back to the chateau in their wicker carriage, so as to be ready to start at the first call for any point where their presence might be necessary. When the two men reappeared in the salon into which they had brought such trouble, terror, grief, and anxiety, they found Laurence, in a dressing-gown, Monsieur d'Hauteserre and his wife, the abbe and his sister, sitting round the fire, to all appearance tranquil.
”If they had caught Michu,” Laurence told herself, ”they would have brought him with them. I have the mortification of knowing that I was not the mistress of myself, and that I threw some light upon the matter for those wretches; but the harm can be undone--How long are we to be your prisoners?” she asked sarcastically, with an easy manner.
”How can she know anything about Michu? No one from the outside has got near the chateau; she is laughing at us,” said the two agents to each other by a look.
”We shall not inconvenience you long,” replied Corentin. ”In three hours from now we shall offer our regrets for having troubled your solitude.”
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