The shock which Renée had had on leaving her brother's room, and which
had made her totter for a moment, had brought on palpitation of the
heart, and for a week afterward she had not been well. She had been kept
quiet and had taken medicines, but she did not recover her gaiety, and
time did not appear to bring it back to her. On seeing her ill, Henri
knew very well what was the matter, and he had done all in his power to
make things up with her again. He had been most affectionate, attentive,
and considerate, and had endeavoured to show his repentance. He had
tried to get into her good graces once more, to appease her conscience,
and to calm her indignation; but his efforts were all in vain. He was
always conscious of a certain coolness in her manner, of a repugnance
for him, and of a sort of quiet resolution which caused him a vague
dread. He understood perfectly well that she had only forgotten the
insult of his brutality; she had forgiven her brother, but she had not
forgiven him as a man.
Her mother had arranged to take her to Paris one day for a little
change, and at the last moment had not felt well enough to go. Henri had
some business to do, and he offered to accompany his sister. They
started, and on reaching Paris drove to the Rue Richelieu. As they were
passing the library Henri told the cabman to draw up.
"Will you wait here for me a moment?" he said to his sister, "I want to
ask one of the librarians a question. Why not come in with me, though,"
he added as an after-thought. "You have always wanted to see the
manuscript scroll-work and that is in the same room. You would find it
interesting, and I could get my information at the same time."
Renée went up with her brother to the manuscript-room, and Henri took
her to the end of a table, waited until the prayer-book he had asked for
was brought, and then went to speak to a librarian in one of the window
recesses.
Renée turned over the leaves of her book slowly. Just behind her one of
the employees was warming himself at the hot-air grating. Presently he
was joined by another, who had just taken some volumes and some
title-deeds to the desk near which Henri was talking, and Renée heard
the following conversation just behind her:
"I say, Chamerot, you see that little chap?"
"Yes, at M. Reisard's desk."
"Well, he can flatter himself that he's got hold of some information
which isn't quite correct. He's come to ask whether there used to be a
family named Villacourt, and whether the name has died out. They've told
him that it has. Now if he'd asked me, I could have told him that some
folks of that name must be living. I don't know whether it's the same
family; but there was one of them there before I left that part of the
world, and a strong, healthy fellow too--the eldest, M. Boisjorand--the
proof is that we had a fight once, and that he knew how to give hard
blows. Their place was quite near to where we lived. One of the turrets
of their house could be seen above Saint-Mihiel, and from a good
distance too; but it didn't belong to them in my time. They were a
spendthrift lot, that family. Oh, they were queer ones for nobility;
they lived with the charcoal-burners in the Croix-du-Soldat woods, at
Motte-Noire, like regular satyrs."
Saint-Mihiel, the Croix-du-Soldat woods, and Motte-Noire--all these
names fixed themselves on Renée's memory and haunted her.
"There, now I have what I wanted," said Henri, gaily, when he came back
to her to take her away.