Part 94 (2/2)

”Live in Chanlouineau's house,” she faltered. ”I alone!”

”Heaven will protect you, my dear child. I can see only advantages in your installation at the Borderie. It will be easy to communicate with you; and with ordinary precautions there can be no danger. Before your departure we will decide upon a place of rendezvous, and two or three times a week you can meet Father Poignot there. And, in the course of two or three months you can be still more useful to us. When people have become accustomed to your residence at the Borderie, we will take the baron there. His convalescence will be much more rapid there, than here in this cramped and narrow loft, where we are obliged to conceal him now, and where he is really suffering for light and air.”

So it was decided that Father Poignot should accompany Marie-Anne to the frontier that very night; there she would take the diligence that ran between Piedmont and Montaignac, pa.s.sing through the village of Sairmeuse.

It was with the greatest care that the abbe dictated to Marie-Anne the story she was to tell of her sojourn in foreign lands. All that she said, and all her answers to questions must tend to prove that Baron d'Escorval was concealed near Turin.

The plan was carried out in every particular; and the next day, about eight o'clock, the people of Sairmeuse were greatly astonished to see Marie-Anne alight from the diligence.

”Monsieur Lacheneur's daughter has returned!”

The words flew from lip to lip with marvellous rapidity, and soon all the inhabitants of the village were gathered at the doors and windows.

They saw the poor girl pay the driver, and enter the inn, followed by a boy bearing a small trunk.

In the city, curiosity has some shame; it hides itself while it spies into the affairs of its neighbors; but in the country it has no such scruples.

When Marie-Anne emerged from the inn, she found a crowd awaiting her with open mouths and staring eyes.

And more than twenty people making all sorts of comments, followed her to the door of the notary.

He was a man of importance, this notary, and he welcomed Marie-Anne with all the deference due an heiress of an unenc.u.mbered property, worth from forty to fifty thousand francs.

But jealous of his renown for perspicuity, he gave her clearly to understand that he, being a man of experience, had divined that love alone had dictated Chanlouineau's last will and testament.

Marie-Anne's composure and resignation made him really angry.

”You forget what brings me here,” she said; ”you do not tell me what I have to do!”

The notary, thus interrupted, made no further attempts at consolation.

”_Pestet!_” he thought, ”she is in a hurry to get possession of her property--the avaricious creature!”

Then aloud:

”The business can be terminated at once, for the justice of the peace is at liberty to-day, and he can go with us to break the seals this afternoon.”

So, before evening, all the legal requirements were complied with, and Marie-Anne was formally installed at the Borderie.

She was alone in Chanlouineau's house--alone! Night came on and a great terror seized her heart. It seemed to her that the doors were about to open, that this man who had loved her so much would appear before her, and that she would hear his voice as she heard it for the last time in his grim prison-cell.

She fought against these foolish fears, lit a lamp, and went through this house--now hers--in which everything spoke so forcibly of its former owner.

Slowly she examined the different rooms on the lower floor, noting the recent repairs which had been made and the conveniences which had been added, and at last she ascended to that room above which Chanlouineau had made the tabernacle of his pa.s.sion.

Here, everything was magnificent, far more so than his words had led her to suppose. The poor peasant who made his breakfast off a crust and a bit of onion had lavished a small fortune on the decorations of this apartment, designed as a sanctuary for his idol.

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