“That suits our plans exactly,” he said; “there is nothing to prevent
our hearing what Raoul has to say to this person who has come from Paris
at ten o’clock at night, to see him. Let us go in.”
Prosper seemed averse to this, and said:
“It is a serious thing for us to do, monsieur.”
“Bless my soul! what else did we come here for? Did you think it was
a pleasure-trip, merely to enjoy this lovely weather?” he said in a
bantering tone.
“But we might be discovered.”
“Suppose we are? If the least noise betrays our presence, you have only
to advance boldly as a friend come to visit a friend, and, finding the
door open walked in.”
But unfortunately the heavy oak door was locked. M. Verduret shook it in
vain.
“How foolish!” he said with vexation, “I ought to have brought my
instruments with me. A common lock which could be opened with a nail,
and I have not even a piece of wire!”
Thinking it useless to attempt the door, he tried successively every
window on the ground-floor. Alas! each blind was securely fastened on
the inside.
M. Verduret was provoked. He prowled around the house like a fox around
a hen-coop, seeking an entrance, but finding none. Despairingly he came
back to the spot in front of the house, whence he had the best view of
the lighted window.
“If I could only look in,” he cried. “Just to think that in there,” and
he pointed to the window, “is the solution of the mystery; and we are
cut off from it by thirty or forty feet of cursed blank wall!”
Prosper was more surprised than ever at his companion’s strange
behavior. He seemed perfectly at home in this garden; he ran about
without any precaution; so that one would have supposed him accustomed
to such expeditions, especially when he spoke of picking the lock of
an occupied house, as if he were talking of opening a snuff-box. He
was utterly indifferent to the rain and sleet driven in his face by the
gusts of wind as he splashed about in the mud trying to find some way of
entrance.
“I must get a peep into that window,” he said, “and I will, cost what it
may!”
Prosper seemed to suddenly remember something.
“There is a ladder here,” he cried.
“Why did you not tell me that before? Where is it?”
“At the end of the garden, under the trees.”
They ran to the spot, and in a few minutes had the ladder standing
against the wall.
But to their chagrin they found the ladder six feet too short. Six long
feet of wall between the top of the ladder and the lighted window was a
very discouraging sight to Prosper; he exclaimed:
“We cannot reach it.”
“We _can_ reach it,” cried M. Verduret triumphantly.
And he quickly placed himself a yard off from the house, and, seizing
the ladder, cautiously raised it and rested the bottom round on his
shoulders, at the same time holding the two uprights firmly and steadily
with his hands. The obstacle was overcome.
“Now mount,” he said to his companion.
Prosper did not hesitate. The enthusiasm of difficulties so skilfully
conquered, and the hope of triumph, gave him a strength and agility
which he had never imagined he possessed. He made a sudden spring, and,
seizing the lower rounds, quickly climbed up the ladder, which swayed
and trembled beneath his weight.
But he had scarcely looked in the lighted window when he uttered a cry
which was drowned in the roaring tempest, and dropped like a log down on
the wet grass, exclaiming:
“The villain! the villain!”
With wonderful promptness and vigor M. Verduret laid the ladder on the
ground, and ran toward Prosper, fearing that he was dead or dangerously
injured.
“What did you see? Are you hurt?” he whispered.
But Prosper had already risen. Although he had had a violent fall, he
was unhurt; he was in a state when mind governs matter so absolutely
that the body is insensible to pain.
“I saw,” he answered in a hoarse voice, “I saw Madeleine--do you
understand, Madeleine--in that room, alone with Raoul!”
M. Verduret was confounded. Was it possible that he, the infallible
expert, had been mistaken in his deductions?
He well knew that M. de Lagors’s visitor was a woman; but his own
conjectures, and the note which Mme. Gypsy had sent to him at the
tavern, had fully assured him that this woman was Mme. Fauvel.
“You must be mistaken,” he said to Prosper.
“No, monsieur, no. Never could I mistake another for Madeleine. Ah! you
who heard what she said to me yesterday, answer me: was I to expect such
infamous treason as this? You said to me then, ‘She loves you, she loves
you!’ Now do you think she loves me? speak!”
M. Verduret did not answer. He had first been stupefied by his mistake,
and was now racking his brain to discover the cause of it, which was
soon discerned by his penetrating mind.
“This is the secret discovered by Nina,” continued Prosper. “Madeleine,
this pure and noble Madeleine, whom I believed to be as immaculate as
an angel, is in love with this thief, who has even stolen the name he
bears; and I, trusting fool that I was, made this scoundrel my best
friend. I confided to him all my hopes and fears; and he was her lover!
Of course they amused themselves by ridiculing my silly devotion and
blind confidence!”
He stopped, overcome by his violent emotions. Wounded vanity is the
worst of miseries. The certainty of having been so shamefully deceived
and betrayed made Prosper almost insane with rage.
“This is the last humiliation I shall submit to,” he fiercely cried. “It
shall not be said that I was coward enough to stand by and let an insult
like this go unpunished.”
He started toward the house; but M. Verduret seized his arm and said:
“What are you going to do?”
“Have my revenge! I will break down the door; what do I care for the
noise and scandal, now that I have nothing to lose? I shall not attempt
to creep into the house like a thief, but as a master, as one who has a
right to enter; as a man who, having received an insult which can only
be washed out with blood, comes to demand satisfaction.”
“You will do nothing of the sort, Prosper.”
“Who will prevent me?”
“I will.”
“You? do not hope that you will be able to deter me. I will appear
before them, put them to the blush, kill them both, then put an end
to my own wretched existence. That is what I intend to do, and nothing
shall stop me!”
If M. Verduret had not held Prosper with a vice-like grip, he would have
escaped, and carried out his threat.
“If you make any noise, Prosper, or raise an alarm, all your hopes are
ruined.”
“I have no hopes now.”
“Raoul, put on his guard, will escape us, and you will remain dishonored
forever.”
“What difference is it to me?”
“It makes a great difference to me. I have sworn to prove your
innocence. A man of your age can easily find a wife, but can never
restore lustre to a tarnished name. Let nothing interfere with the
establishing of your innocence.”
Genuine passion is uninfluenced by surrounding circumstances. M.
Verduret and Prosper stood foot-deep in mud, wet to the skin, the rain
pouring down on their heads, and yet seemed in no hurry to end their
dispute.
“I will be avenged,” repeated Prosper with the persistency of a fixed
idea, “I will avenge myself.”
“Well, avenge yourself like a man, and not like a child!” said M.
Verduret angrily.
“Monsieur!”
“Yes, I repeat it, like a child. What will you do after you get into
the house? Have you any arms? No. You rush upon Raoul, and a struggle
ensues; while you two are fighting, Madeleine jumps in her carriage, and
drives off. What then? Which is the stronger, you or Raoul?”
Overcome by the sense of his powerlessness, Prosper was silent.
“And arms would be of no use,” continued M. Verduret: “it is fortunate
you have none with you, for it would be very foolish to shoot a man whom
you can send to the galleys.”
“What must I do?”
“Wait. Vengeance is a delicious fruit, that must ripen in order that we
may fully enjoy it.”
Prosper was unsettled in his resolution; M. Verduret seeing this brought
forth his last and strongest argument.
“How do we know,” he said, “that Mlle. Madeleine is here on her own
account? Did we not come to the conclusion that she was sacrificing
herself for the benefit of someone else? That superior will which
compelled her to banish you may have constrained this step to-night.”
That which coincides with our secret wishes is always eagerly welcomed.
This supposition, apparently improbable, struck Prosper as possibly
true.
“That might be the case,” he murmured, “who knows?”
“I would soon know,” said M. Verduret, “if I could see them together in
that room.”
“Will you promise me, monsieur, to tell me the exact truth, all that you
see and hear, no matter how painful it may be for me?”
“I swear it, upon my word of honor.”
Then, with a strength of which a few minutes before he would not have
believed himself possessed, Prosper raised the ladder, placed the last
round on his shoulders, and said to M. Verduret:
“Mount!”
M. Verduret rapidly ascended the ladder without even shaking it, and had
his head on a level with the window.
Prosper had seen but too well. There was Madeleine at this hour of the
night, alone with Raoul de Lagors in his room!