Part 118 (1/2)

”True; but we must extend the circle of our investigations.”

The priest, now, was only striving to gain time, knowing full well that it is the sovereign balm for all sorrows.

His confidence, which had been very great at first, had been sensibly diminished by the responses of an old woman, who pa.s.sed for one of the greatest gossips in the community.

Adroitly interrogated, the worthy dame replied that she knew nothing of such a child, but that there must be one in the neighborhood, since it was the third time she had been questioned on the subject.

Intense as was his surprise, the abbe succeeded in hiding it.

He set the old gossip to talking, and after a two hours' conversation, he arrived at the conclusion that two persons besides Maurice were searching for Marie-Anne's child.

Why, with what aim, and who these persons could be the abbe was unable to ascertain.

”Ah! rascals have their uses after all,” he thought. ”If we only had a man like Chupin to set upon the track!”

But the old poacher was dead, and his eldest son--the one who knew Blanche de Courtornieu's secret--was in Paris.

Only the widow and the second son remained in Sairmeuse.

They had not, as yet, succeeded in discovering the twenty thousand francs, but the fever for gold was burning in their veins, and they persisted in their search. From morning until night the mother and son toiled on, until the earth around their hut had been explored to the depth of six feet.

A word dropped by a peasant one day put an end to these researches.

”Really, my boy,” he said, addressing young Chupin, ”I did not suppose you were such a fool as to persist in hunting birds' nests after the birds have flown. Your brother, who is in Paris, can undoubtedly tell you where the treasure was concealed.”

The younger Chupin uttered the fierce roar of a wild beast.

”Holy Virgin! you are right!” he exclaimed. ”Wait until I get money enough to take me to Paris, and we will see.”

CHAPTER L

Martial de Sairmeuse's unexpected visit to the Chateau de Courtornieu had alarmed Aunt Medea even more than Blanche.

In ten seconds, more ideas pa.s.sed through her brain than had visited it for ten years.

She saw the gendarmes at the chateau; she saw her niece arrested, incarcerated in the Montaignac prison, and brought before the Court of a.s.sizes.

If this were all she had to fear! But suppose she, too, were compromised, suspected of complicity, dragged before the judge, and even accused of being the sole culprit!

Finding the suspense intolerable, she left her room; and, stealing on tiptoe to the great drawing-room, she applied her ear to the door of the little blue salon, in which Blanche and Martial were seated.

The conversation which she heard convinced her that her fears were groundless.

She drew a long breath, as if a mighty burden had been lifted from her breast. But a new idea, which was to grow, flourish, and bear fruit, had just taken root in her brain.

When Martial left the room, Aunt Medea at once opened the communicating door and entered the blue salon, thus avowing that she had been a listener.

Twenty-four hours earlier she would not have dreamed of committing such an enormity.

”Well, Blanche, we were frightened at nothing,” she exclaimed.