Part 48

And as the man turned to obey, she added: “My carriage must be in the courtyard. Take it.”

Meanwhile M. Fortunat’s expression of countenance had undergone a marked change. “Well!” thought he, “I have just made a mess of it! M. Valorsay is unmasked; and now, may I be hung, if he ever marries Mademoiselle Marguerite. Certainly, I do not owe much to the scoundrel, for he has defrauded me of forty thousand francs, but what will he say when he discovers what I’ve done? He will never believe me if I tell him that it was an involuntary blunder, and Heaven only knows what revenge he will plan! A man of his disposition, knowing that he is ruined, is capable of anything! So much the worse for me. Before night I shall warn the commissary of police in my district, and I shall not go out unarmed!”

The servant went off, and Madame d’Argeles then turned to her visitor again. But she seemed literally transfigured by the storm of passion which was raging in her heart and mind; her cheeks were crimson, and an unwonted energy sparkled in her eyes. “Let us finish this business,” she said, curtly; “I am expecting some one.”

M. Fortunat bowed with a rather pompous, but at the same time obsequious air. “I have only a few more words to say,” he declared. “M. de Chalusse having no other heir, I have come to acquaint you with your rights.”

“Very good; continue, if you please.”

“You have only to present yourself, and establish your identity, to be put in possession of your brother’s property.”

Madame d’Argeles gave the agent a look of mingled irony and distrust; and after a moment’s reflection, she replied: “I am very grateful for your interest, monsieur; but if I have any rights, it is not my intention to urge them.”

It seemed to M. Fortunat as if he were suddenly falling from some immense height. “You are not in earnest,” he exclaimed, “or you are ignorant of the fact that M. de Chalusse leaves perhaps twenty millions behind him.”

“My course is decided on, monsieur; irrevocably decided on.”

“Very well, madame; but it often happens that the court institutes inquiries for the heirs of large fortunes, and this may happen in your case.”

“I should reply that I was not a member of the Chalusse family, and that would end it. Startled by the news of my brother’s death, I allowed my secret to escape me. I shall know how to keep it in future.”

Anger succeeded astonishment in M. Fortunat’s mind. “Madame, madame, what can you be thinking of?” he cried, impetuously. “Accept--in Heaven’s name--accept this inheritance; if not for yourself, for the sake of----”

In his excitement, he was about to commit a terrible blunder. He saw it in time, and checked himself.

“For the sake of whom?” asked Madame d’Argeles, in an altered voice.

“For the sake of Mademoiselle Marguerite, madame; for the sake of this poor child, who is your niece. The count never having acknowledged her as his daughter, she will be left actually without bread, while her father’s millions go to enrich the state.”

“That will suffice, monsieur; I will think of it. And now, enough!”

The dismissal was so imperious that M. Fortunat bowed and went off, completely bewildered by this denouement. “She’s crazy!” he said to himself. “Crazy in the fullest sense of the word. She refuses the count’s millions from a silly fear of telling people that she belongs to the Chalusse family. She threatened her brother, but she would never have carried her threats into execution. And she prefers her present position to such a fortune. What lunacy!” But, although he was disappointed and angry, he did not by any means despair. “Fortunately for me,” he thought, “this proud and haughty lady has a son somewhere in the world. And she’ll do for him what she would not consent to do for herself. Through her, with a little patience and Victor Chupin’s aid, I shall succeed in discovering this boy. He must be an intelligent youth--and we’ll see if he surrenders his millions as easily as his mamma does.”

XVI.

It is a terrible task to break suddenly with one’s past, without even having had time for preparation; to renounce the life one has so far lived, to return to the starting point, and begin existence anew; to abandon everything--the position one has gained, the work one has become familiar with, every fondly cherished hope, and friend, and habit; to forsake the known to plunge into the unknown, to leave the certain for the uncertain, and desert light for darkness; to cast one’s identity aside, assume a strange individuality, become a living lie, change name, position, face, and clothes--in one phrase, to cease to be one’s self, in order to become some one else.

This is indeed, a terrible ordeal, and requires an amount of resolution and energy which few human beings possess. The boldest hesitate before such a sacrifice, and many a man has surrendered himself to justice rather than resort to this last extremity. And yet this was what Pascal Ferailleur had the courage to do, on the morrow of the shameful conspiracy that had deprived him of his good name. When his mother’s exhortations and Baron Trigault’s encouraging words had restored his wonted clearness of perception, the only course he felt disposed to pursue was to disappear and fly from the storm of slander and contempt; and then, in a secure hiding-place, to watch for the time and opportunity of rehabilitation and revenge.

Madame Ferailleur and her son made all needful arrangements. “I shall start out at once,” said Pascal, “and before two hours have elapsed I shall have found a modest lodging, where we must conceal ourselves for the present. I know a locality that will suit us, and where no one will certainly ever think of looking for us.”

“And I,” asked Madame Ferailleur, “what shall I do in the meantime?”

“You, mother; you must, at once, sell all that we possess here--everything--even my books. You will only keep such of our linen and clothes as you can pack in three or four trunks. We are undoubtedly watched; and so it is of the utmost importance that every one should imagine I have left Paris, and that you are going to join me.”

“And when everything is sold, and my trunks are ready?”

“Then, mother, you must send some one for a cab, and order the driver to take you to the Western Railway Station, where you will have the trunks removed from the cab and placed in the baggage-room, as if you did not intend to leave Paris till the next day.”

“Very good, I will do so; even if any one is watching us, he won’t be likely to suspect this ruse. But afterward?”

“Afterward, mother, you must go to the waiting-room upstairs, and you will find me there. I will then take you to the rooms I shall have rented, and to-morrow we’ll send a messenger with the receipt the railway people will give you, to fetch our luggage for us.”

Madame Ferailleur approved of this plan, deeming herself fortunate in this great calamity that despair had not destroyed her son’s energy and resources of mind. “Shall we retain our name, Pascal?”