Part 101 (2/2)
A fleeting crimson suffused Jean Lacheneur's cheek; he hesitated for a moment, then:
”Because I have a right to dispose of my own life, but not of yours,” he replied. ”We can no longer be anything to each other. I deny you to-day, that you may be able to deny me to-morrow. Yes, I renounce you, who are my all--the only person on earth whom I love. Your most cruel enemies have not calumniated you more foully than I----”
He paused an instant, then he added:
”I have said openly, before numerous witnesses, that I would never set foot in a house that had been given you by Chanlouineau.”
”Jean! you, my brother! said that?”
”I said it. It must be supposed that there is a deadly feud between us.
This must be, in order that neither you nor Maurice d'Escorval can be accused of complicity in any deed of mine.”
Marie-Anne stood as if petrified.
”He is mad!” she murmured.
”Do I really have that appearance?”
She shook off the stupor that paralyzed her, and seizing her brother's hands:
”What do you intend to do?” she exclaimed. ”What do you intend to do?
Tell me; I will know.”
”Nothing! let me alone.”
”Jean!”
”Let me alone,” he said, roughly, disengaging himself.
A horrible presentiment crossed Marie-Anne's mind.
She stepped back, and solemnly, entreatingly, she said:
”Take care, take care, my brother. It is not well to tamper with these matters. Leave to G.o.d's justice the task of punis.h.i.+ng those who have wronged us.”
But nothing could move Jean Lacheneur, or divert him from his purpose.
He uttered a hoa.r.s.e, discordant laugh, then striking his gun heavily with his hand, he exclaimed:
”Here is justice!”
Appalled and distressed beyond measure, Marie-Anne sank into a chair.
She discerned in her brother's mind the same fixed, fatal idea which had lured her father on to destruction--the idea for which he had sacrificed all--family, friends, fortune, the present and the future--even his daughter's honor--the idea which had caused so much blood to flow, which had cost the life of so many innocent men, and which had finally conducted him to the scaffold.
”Jean,” she murmured, ”remember our father.”
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