Clameran’s last injunction to Raoul was:
“Be very cautious when you enter the room; your appearance must tell
everything, so you can avoid preliminary explanations.”
The recommendation was useless.
The instant that Raoul went into the little salon, the sight of his
pale, haggard face and wild eyes caused Mme. Fauvel to spring up with
clasped hands, and cry out:
“Raoul! What has happened? Speak, my son!”
The sound of her tender, affectionate voice acted like an electric shock
upon the young bandit. He shook like a leaf. But at the same time his
mind seemed to change. Louis was not mistaken in his estimate of his
companion’s character. Raoul was on the stage, his part was to be
played; his assurance returned to him; his cheating, lying nature
assumed the ascendant, and stifled any better feeling in his heart.
“This misfortune is the last I shall ever suffer, mother!”
Mme. Fauvel rushed toward him, and, seizing his hand, gazed searchingly
into his eyes, as if to read his very soul.
“What is the matter? Raoul, my dear son, do tell me what troubles you.”
He gently pushed her from him.
“The matter is, my mother,” he said in a voice of heart-broken despair,
“that I am an unworthy, degenerate son! Unworthy of you, unworthy of my
noble father!”
She tried to comfort him by saying that his errors were all her fault,
and that he was, in spite of all, the pride of her heart.
“Alas!” he said, “I know and judge myself. No one can reproach me for
my infamous conduct more bitterly than does my own conscience. I am
not naturally wicked, but only a miserable fool. At times I am like an
insane man, and am not responsible for my actions. Ah, my dear mother,
I would not be what I am, if you had watched over my childhood. But
brought up among strangers, with no guide but my own evil passions,
nothing to restrain me, no one to advise me, no one to love me, owning
nothing, not even my stolen name, I am cursed with vanity and unbounded
ambition. Poor, with no one to assist me but you, I have the tastes and
vices of a millionnaire’s son.
“Alas for me! When I found you, the evil was done. Your affection, your
maternal love, the only true happiness of my life, could not save me. I,
who had suffered so much, endured so many privations, even the pangs of
hunger, became spoiled by this new life of luxury and pleasure which
you opened before me. I rushed headlong into extravagance, as a drunkard
long deprived of liquor seizes and drains to the dregs the first bottle
in his reach.”
Mme. Fauvel listened, silent and terrified, to these words of despair
and remorse, which Raoul uttered with vehemence.
She dared not interrupt him, but felt certain some dreadful piece of
news was coming.
Raoul continued in a sad, hopeless tone:
“Yes, I have been a weak fool. Happiness was within my reach, and I
had not the sense to stretch forth my hand and grab it. I rejected a
heavenly reality to eagerly pursue a vain phantom. I, who ought to have
spent my life at your feet, and daily striven to express my gratitude
for your lavish kindness, have made you unhappy, destroyed your peace of
mind, and, instead of being a blessing, I have been a curse ever since
the first fatal day you welcomed me to your kind heart. Ah, unfeeling
brute that I was, to squander upon creatures whom I despised, a fortune,
of which each gold piece must have cost you a tear! Too late, too late!
With you I might have been a good and happy man!”
He stopped, as if overcome by the conviction of his evil deeds, and
seemed about to burst into tears.
“It is never too late to repent, my son,” murmured Mme. Fauvel in
comforting tones.
“Ah, if I only could!” cried Raoul; “but no, it is too late! Besides,
can I tell how long my good resolutions will last? This is not the first
time that I have condemned myself pitilessly. Stinging remorse for each
new fault made me swear to lead a better life, to sin no more. What was
the result of these periodical repentances? At the first temptation I
forgot my remorse and good resolutions. I am weak and mean-spirited,
and you are not firm enough to govern my vacillating nature. While
my intentions are good, my actions are villainous. The disproportion
between my extravagant desires, and the means of gratifying them, is too
great for me to endure any longer. Who knows to what fearful lengths my
unfortunate disposition may lead me? However, I will take my fate in my
own hands!” he finally said with a reckless laugh.
“Oh, Raoul, my dear son,” cried Mme. Fauvel in an agony of terror,
“explain these dreadful words; am I not your mother? Tell me what
distresses you; I am ready to hear the worst.”
He appeared to hesitate, as if afraid to crush his mother’s heart by the
terrible blow he was about to inflict. Then in a voice of gloomy despair
he replied:
“I am ruined.”
“Ruined?”
“Yes, ruined; and I have nothing more to expect or hope for. I am
dishonored, and all through my own fault; no one is to be blamed but
myself.”
“Raoul!”
“It is the sad truth, my poor mother; but fear nothing: I shall not
trail in the dust the name which you bestowed upon me. I will at least
have the courage not to survive my dishonor. Come, mother, don’t pity
me, or distress yourself; I am one of those miserable beings fated to
find no peace save in the arms of death. I came into the world with
misfortune stamped upon my brow. Was not my birth a shame and disgrace
to you? Did not the memory of my existence haunt you day and night,
filling your soul with remorse? And now, when I am restored to you after
many years’ separation, do I not prove to be a bitter curse instead of a
blessing?”
“Ungrateful boy! Have I ever reproached you?”
“Never! Your poor Raoul will die with your beloved name on his lips;
his last words a prayer to Heaven to heap blessings upon your head, and
reward your long-suffering devotion.”
“Die? You die, my son!”
“It must be, my dear mother; honor compels it. I am condemned by judges
from whose decision no appeal can be taken--my conscience and my will.”
An hour ago, Mme. Fauvel would have sworn that Raoul had made her suffer
all the torments that a woman could endure; but now she felt that all
her former troubles were nothing compared with her present agony.
“My God! Raoul, what have you been doing?”
“Money was intrusted to me: I gambled and lost it.”
“Was it a large sum?”
“No; but more than I can replace. My poor mother, have I not taken
everything from you? Did you not give me your last jewel?”
“But M. de Clameran is rich. He placed his fortune at my disposal. I
will order the carriage, and go to him.”
“But M. de Clameran is absent, and will not return to Paris until next
week; and if I do not have the money this evening, I am lost. Alas! I
have thought deeply, and, although it is hard to die so young, still
fate wills it so.”
He pulled a pistol from his pocket, and, with a forced smile, said:
“This will settle everything.”
Mme. Fauvel was too excited and frightened to reflect upon the horror
of Raoul’s behavior, and that these wild threats were a last resort
for obtaining money. Forgetful of the past, careless of the future, her
every thought concentrated upon the present, she comprehended but
one fact: that her son was about to commit suicide, and that she was
powerless to prevent the fearful deed.
“Oh, wait a little while my son!” she cried. “Andre will soon return
home, and I will ask him to give me--How much did you lose?”
“Thirty thousand francs.”
“You shall have them to-morrow.”
“But I must have the money to-night.”
Mme. Fauvel wrung her hands in despair.
“Oh! why did you not come to me sooner, my son? Why did you not have
confidence enough in me to come at once for help? This evening! There is
no one in the house to open the money-safe; if it were not for that--if
you had only come before Andre went out--”
“The safe!” cried Raoul, with sudden joy, as if this magic word had
thrown a ray of light upon his dark despair; “do you know where the key
is kept?”
“Yes: it is in the next room.”
“Well!” he exclaimed, with a bold look that caused Mme. Fauvel to lower
her eyes, and keep silent.
“Give me the key, mother,” he said in a tone of entreaty.
“Oh, Raoul, Raoul!”
“It is my life I am asking of you.”
These words decided her; she snatched up a candle, rushed into her
chamber, opened the secretary, and took out M. Fauvel’s key.
But, when about to hand it to Raoul, she seemed to suddenly see the
enormity of what she was doing.
“Oh, Raoul! my son,” she murmured, “I cannot! Do not ask me to commit
such a dreadful deed!”
He said nothing, but sadly turned to leave the room; then coming back to
his mother said:
“Ah, well; it makes but little difference in the end! At least, you will
give me one last kiss, before we part forever, my darling mother!”
“What could you do with the key, Raoul?” interrupted Mme. Fauvel. “You
do not know the secret word of the buttons.”
“No; but I can try to open it without moving the buttons.”
“You know that money is never kept in the safe over-night.”
“Nevertheless, I can make the attempt. If I open the safe, and find
money in it, it will be a miracle, showing that Heaven has pitied my
misfortune, and provided relief.”
“And if you are not successful, will you promise me to wait until
to-morrow, to do nothing rash to-night?”
“I swear it, by my father’s memory.”
“Then take the key and follow me.”
Pale and trembling, Raoul and Mme. Fauvel passed through the banker’s
study, and down the narrow staircase leading to the offices and
cash-room below.
Raoul walked in front, holding the light, and the key of the safe.
Mme. Fauvel was convinced that it would be utterly impossible to open
the safe, as the key was useless without the secret word, and of course
Raoul had no way of discovering what that was.
Even granting that some chance had revealed the secret to him, he would
find but little in the safe, since everything was deposited in the Bank
of France. Everyone knew that no large sum was ever kept in the safe
after banking hours.
The only anxiety she felt was, how Raoul would bear the disappointment,
and how she could calm his despair.
She thought that she would gain time by letting Raoul try the key; and
then, when he could not open the safe, he would keep his promise, and
wait until the next day. There was surely no harm in letting him try the
lock, when he could not touch the money.
“When he sees there is no chance of success,” she thought, “he will
listen to my entreaties; and to-morrow--to-morrow----”
What she could do to-morrow she knew not, she did not even ask herself.
But in extreme situations the least delay inspires hope, as if a short
respite meant sure salvation.
The condemned man, at the last moment, begs for a reprieve of a day, an
hour, a few seconds. Raoul was about to kill himself: his mother prayed
to God to grant her one day, not even a day, one night; as if in this
space of time some unexpected relief would come to end her misery.
They reached Prosper’s office, and Raoul placed the light on a high
stool so that it lighted the whole room.
He then summoned up all his coolness, or rather that mechanical
precision of movement, almost independent of will, of which men
accustomed to peril avail themselves in time of need.
Rapidly, with the dexterity of experience, he slipped the buttons on the
five letters composing the name of G, y, p, s, y.
His features, during this short operation, expressed the most intense
anxiety. He was fearful that his nervous energy might give out; of not
being able to open the safe; of not finding the money there when
he opened it; of Prosper having changed the word; or perhaps having
neglected to leave the money in the safe.
Mme. Fauvel saw these visible apprehensions with alarm. She read in his
eyes that wild hope of a man who, passionately desiring an object,
ends by persuading himself that his own will suffices to overcome all
obstacles.
Having often been present when Prosper was preparing to leave his
office, Raoul had fifty times seen him move the buttons, and lock the
safe, just before leaving the bank. Indeed, having a practical turn
of mind, and an eye to the future, he had even tried to lock the safe
himself on several occasions, while waiting for Prosper.
He inserted the key softly, turned it around, pushed it farther in,
and turned it a second time; then thrust it in suddenly, and turned it
again. His heart beat so loudly that Mme. Fauvel could hear its throbs.
The word had not been changed; the safe opened.
Raoul and his mother simultaneously uttered a cry; she of terror, he of
triumph.
“Shut it again!” cried Mme. Fauvel, frightened at the incomprehensible
result of Raoul’s attempt: “Come away! Don’t touch anything, for
Heaven’s sake! Raoul!”
And, half frenzied, she clung to Raoul’s arm, and pulled him away so
abruptly, that the key was dragged from the lock, and, slipping along
the glossy varnish of the safe-door, made a deep scratch some inches
long.
But at a glance Raoul discovered, on the upper shelf of the safe, three
bundles of bank-notes. He snatched them up with his left hand, and
slipped them inside his vest.
Exhausted by the effort she had just made, Mme. Fauvel dropped Raoul’s
arm, and, almost fainting with emotion, clung to the back of a chair.
“Have mercy, Raoul!” she moaned. “I implore you to put back that money
and I solemnly swear that I will give you twice as much to-morrow. Oh,
my son, have pity upon your unhappy mother!”
He paid no attention to these words of entreaty, but carefully examined
the scratch on the safe. He was alarmed at this trace of the robbery,
which it was impossible for him to cover up.
“At least you will not take all,” said Mme. Fauvel; “just keep enough to
save yourself, and put back the rest.”
“What good would that do? The discovery will be made that the safe has
been opened; so I might as well take all as a part.”
“Oh, no! not at all. I can account to Andre; I will tell him I had a
pressing need for a certain sum, and opened the safe to get it.”
In the meantime Raoul had carefully closed the safe.
“Come, mother, let us go back to the sitting-room. A servant might go
there to look for you, and be astonished at our absence.”
Raoul’s cruel indifference and cold calculations at such a moment filled
Mme. Fauvel with indignation. She saw that she had no influence over her
son, that her prayers and tears had no effect upon his hard heart.
“Let them be astonished,” she cried: “let them come here and find us! I
will be relieved to put an end to this tissue of crime. Then Andre will
know all, and drive me from his house. Let come what will, I shall
not sacrifice another victim. Prosper will be accused of this theft
to-morrow. Clameran defrauded him of the woman he loved, and now you
would deprive him of his honor! I will have nothing to do with so base a
crime.”
She spoke so loud and angrily that Raoul was alarmed. He knew that the
errand-boy slept in a room close by, and might be in bed listening to
her, although it was early in the evening.
“Come upstairs!” he said, seizing Mme. Fauvel’s arm.
But she clung to a table and refused to move a step.
“I have been cowardly enough to sacrifice Madeleine,” she said, “but I
will not ruin Prosper.”
Raoul had an argument in reserve which he knew would make Mme. Fauvel
submit to his will.
“Now, really,” he said with a cynical laugh, “do you pretend that you do
not know Prosper and I arranged this little affair together, and that he
is to have half the booty?”
“Impossible! I never will believe such a thing of Prosper!”
“Why, how do you suppose I discovered the secret word? Who do you
suppose disobeyed orders, and left the money in the safe?”
“Prosper is honest.”
“Of course he is, and so am I too. The only thing is, that we both need
money.”
“You are telling a falsehood, Raoul!”
“Upon my soul, I am not. Madeleine rejected Prosper, and the poor fellow
has to console himself for her cruelty; and these sorts of consolations
are expensive, my good mother.”
He took up the candle, and gently but firmly led Mme. Fauvel toward the
staircase.
She mechanically suffered herself to be led along, more bewildered by
what she had just heard than she was at the opening of the safe-door.
“What!” she gasped, “can Prosper be a thief?”
She began to think herself the victim of a terrible nightmare, and that,
when she waked, her mind would be relieved of this intolerable torture.
She helplessly clung to Raoul’s arm as he helped her up the narrow
little staircase.
“You must put the key back in the secretary,” said Raoul, as soon as
they were in the chamber again.
But she did not seem to hear him; so he went and replaced the safe-key
in the place from which he had seen her take it.
He then led, or rather carried, Mme. Fauvel into the little
sitting-room, and placed her in an easy-chair.
The set, expressionless look of the wretched woman’s eyes, and her dazed
manner, frightened Raoul, who thought that she had lost her mind, that
her reason had finally given way beneath this last terrible shock.
“Come, cheer up, my dear mother,” he said in coaxing tones as he rubbed
her icy hands; “you have saved my life, and rendered an immense service
to Prosper. Don’t be alarmed; everything will come out right in the
end. Prosper will be accused, perhaps arrested; he expects that, and is
prepared for it; he will deny his culpability; and, as there is no proof
against him, he will be set at liberty immediately.”
But these falsehoods were wasted on Mme. Fauvel, who was incapable of
understanding anything said to her.
“Raoul,” she moaned in a broken-hearted tone, “Raoul, my son, you have
killed me.”
Her gentle voice, kind even in its despairing accents, touched the very
bottom of Raoul’s perverted heart, and once more his soul was wrung
by remorse; so that he felt inclined to put back the stolen money, and
comfort the despairing woman whose life and reason he was destroying.
The thought of Clameran restrained him.
Finding his efforts to restore Mme. Fauvel fruitless, that, in spite
of all his affectionate regrets and promises, she still sat silent,
motionless, and death-like; and fearing that M. Fauvel or Madeleine
might enter at any moment, and demand an explanation, he hastily pressed
a kiss upon his mother’s brow, and hurried from the house.
At the restaurant, in the room where they had dined, Clameran, tortured
by anxiety, awaited his accomplice.
He wondered if at the last moment, when he was not near to sustain him,
Raoul would prove a coward, and retreat; if any unforeseen trifle had
prevented his finding the key; if any visitors were there; and, if so,
would they depart before M. Fauvel’s return from the dinner-party?
He had worked himself into such a state of excitement, that, when Raoul
returned, he flew to him with ashy face and trembling all over, and
could scarcely gasp out:
“Well?”
“The deed is done, uncle, thanks to you; and I am now the most
miserable, abject villain on the face of the earth.”
He unbuttoned his vest, and, pulling out the four bundles of bank-notes,
angrily dashed them upon the table, saying, in a tone of scorn and
disgust:
“Now I hope you are satisfied. This is the price of the happiness,
honor, and perhaps the life of three people.”
Clameran paid no attention to these angry words. With feverish eagerness
he seized the notes, and rattled them in his hand as if to convince
himself of the reality of success.
“Now Madeleine is mine!” he cried excitedly.
Raoul looked at Clameran in silent disgust. This exhibition of joy was
a shocking contrast to the scene in which he had just been an actor. He
was humiliated at being the tool of such a heartless scoundrel as he now
knew Clameran to be.
Louis misinterpreted this silence, and said gayly:
“Did you have much difficulty?”
“I forbid you ever to allude to this evening’s work,” cried Raoul
fiercely. “Do you hear me? I wish to forget it.”
Clameran shrugged his shoulders at this outburst of anger, and said in a
bantering tone:
“Just as you please, my handsome nephew: I rather think you will want
to remember it though, when I offer you these three hundred and fifty
thousand francs. You will not, I am sure, refuse to accept them as a
slight souvenir. Take them: they are yours.”
This generosity seemed neither to surprise nor satisfy Raoul.
“According to our agreement,” he said sullenly, “I was to have more than
this.”
“Of course: this is only part of your share.”
“And when am I to have the rest, if you please?”
“The day I marry Madeleine, and not before, my boy. You are too valuable
an assistant to lose at present; and you know that, though I don’t
mistrust you, I am not altogether sure of your sincere affection for
me.”
Raoul reflected that to commit a crime, and not profit by it, would be
the height of absurdity. He had come with the intention of breaking off
all connection with Clameran; but he now determined that he would not
abandon his accomplice until he had been well paid for his services.
“Very well,” he said, “I accept this on account; but remember, I will
never do another piece of work like this to-night. You can do what you
please; I shall flatly refuse.”
Clameran burst into a loud laugh, and said:
“That is sensible: now that you are rich, you can afford to be honest.
Set your conscience at rest, for I promise you I will require nothing
more of you save a few trifling services. You can retire behind the
scenes now, while I appear upon the stage; my role begins.”