Part 19 (2/2)
The four young men and Laurence were so hungry and the dinner so acceptable that they would not delay it by changing their dress. They entered the salon, she in her riding-habit, they in their white leather breeches, high-top boots and green-cloth jackets, where they found Monsieur d'Hauteserre and his wife, not a little uneasy at their long absence. The goodman had noticed their goings and comings, and, above all, their evident distrust of him, for Laurence had been unable to get rid of him as she had of her servants. Once when his own sons evidently avoided making any reply to his questions, he went to his wife and said, ”I am afraid that Laurence may still get us into trouble!”
”What sort of game did you hunt to-day?” said Madame d'Hauteserre to Laurence.
”Ah!” replied the young girl, laughing, ”you'll hear some day what a strange hunt your sons have joined in to-day.”
Though said in jest the words made the old lady tremble. Catherine entered to announce dinner. Laurence took Monsieur d'Hauteserre's arm, smiling for a moment at the necessity she thus forced upon her cousins to offer an arm to Madame d'Hauteserre, who, according to agreement, was now to be the arbiter of their fate.
The Marquis de Simeuse took in Madame d'Hauteserre. The situation was so momentous that after the Benedicite was said Laurence and the young men trembled from the violent palpitation of their hearts. Madame d'Hauteserre, who carved, was struck by the anxiety on the faces of the Simeuse brothers and the great alteration that was noticeable in Laurence's lamb-like features.
”Something extraordinary is going on, I am sure of it!” she exclaimed, looking at all of them.
”To whom are you speaking?” asked Laurence.
”To all of you,” said the old lady.
”As for me, mother,” said Robert, ”I am frightfully hungry, and that is not extraordinary.”
Madame d'Hauteserre, still troubled, offered the Marquis de Simeuse a plate intended for his brother.
”I am like your mother,” she said. ”I don't know you apart even by your cravats. I thought I was helping your brother.”
”You have helped me better than you thought for,” said the youngest, turning pale; ”you have made him Comte de Cinq-Cygne.”
”What! do you mean to tell me the countess has made her choice?” cried Madame d'Hauteserre.
”No,” said Laurence; ”we left the decision to fate and you are its instrument.”
She told of the agreement made that morning. The elder Simeuse, watching the increasing pallor of his brother's face, was momentarily on the point of crying out, ”Marry her; I will go away and die!” Just then, as the dessert was being served, all present heard raps upon the window of the dining-room on the garden side. The eldest d'Hauteserre opened it and gave entrance to the abbe, whose breeches were torn in climbing over the walls of the park.
”Fly! they are coming to arrest you,” he cried.
”Why?”
”I don't know yet; but there's a warrant against you.”
The words were greeted with general laughter.
”We are innocent,” said the young men.
”Innocent or guilty,” said the abbe, ”mount your horses and make for the frontier. There you can prove your innocence. You could overcome a sentence by default; you will never overcome a sentence rendered by popular pa.s.sion and instigated by prejudice. Remember the words of President de Harlay, 'If I were accused of carrying off the towers of Notre-Dame the first thing I should do would be to run away.'”
”To run away would be to admit we were guilty,” said the Marquis de Simeuse.
”Don't do it!” cried Laurence.
”Always the same sublime folly!” exclaimed the abbe, in despair. ”If I had the power of G.o.d I would carry you away. But if I am found here in this state they will turn my visit against you, and against me too; therefore I leave you by the way I came. Consider my advice; you have still time. The gendarmes have not yet thought of the wall which adjoins the parsonage; but you are hemmed in on the other sides.”
The sound of many feet and the jangle of the sabres of the gendarmerie echoed through the courtyard and reached the dining-room a few moments after the departure of the poor abbe, whose advice had met the same fate as that of the Marquis de Chargeboeuf.
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