“I understand; she shall be treated as politely as if she were the
daughter of the owner of the house. But excuse me, I must attend to the
door; they call me, and I must go down stairs.”
He slipped out without waiting for an answer, and utterly unable to
guess why the old merchant should take such a sudden interest in the
lodger on the fifth floor.
“The rascal!” said Papa Ravinet to himself,--“the rascal!”
But he had found out what he wanted to know. He was alone, and he knew
he had no time to lose.
Quickly he drew the teakettle from the fire; and, pulling out Miss
Henrietta’s two letters, he held the one that was addressed to M. Maxime
de Brevan over the steam of the boiling water. In a moment the mucilage
of the envelope was dissolved, and the letter could easily be opened
without showing in any way that it had ever been broken open. And now
the old man read the following words:--
“You are victorious, M. de Brevan. When you read this, I shall be no
longer alive.
“You may raise your head again; you are relieved of all fears. Daniel
can come back. I shall carry the secret of your infamy and your
cowardice into the grave with me.
“And yet, no!
“I can pardon you, having but a few moments longer to live; but God
will not pardon you. I--I shall be avenged. And, if it should require a
miracle, that miracle will be done, so as to inform that honorable man
who thought you were his friend, how and why the poor girl died whom he
had intrusted to your honor. H.”
The old man was furious.
“The honor of Maxime de Brevan!” he growled with a voice of intense
hatred,--“the honor of Maxime de Brevan!”
But his terrible excitement did not keep him from manipulating the
other letter, addressed to Count Ville-Handry, in the same manner. The
operation was successful; and, without the slightest hesitation, he
read:--
“Dear father,--Broken down with anxiety, and faint from exhaustion, I
have waited till this morning for an answer to my humble letter, which I
had written to you on my knees.
“You have never replied to it; you are inexorable. I see I must die. I
shall die. Alas! I can hardly say I die willingly.
“I must appear very guilty in your eyes, father, that you should abandon
me thus to the hatred of Sarah Brandon and her people. And yet--ah! I
have suffered terribly. I have struggled hard before I could make up my
mind to leave your house,--the house where my mother had died, where I
had been so happy, and so tenderly beloved as a child by both of you.
Ah, if you but knew!
“And yet it was so little I asked of you!--barely enough to bury my
undeserved disgrace in a convent.
“Yes, undeserved, father; for I tell you at this hour, when no one
utters a falsehood, if my reputation was lost, my honor was not lost.”
Big tears rolled down the cheeks of the old man; and he said in a
half-stifled voice,--
“Poor, poor child! And to think that for a whole year I have lived under
the same roof with her, without knowing it. But I am here. I am still in
time. Oh, what a friend _chance_ can be when it chooses!”
Most assuredly not one of the inmates of the house would have recognized
Papa Ravinet at this moment; he was literally transfigured. He was no
longer the cunning dealer in second-hand articles, the old scamp with
the sharp, vulgar face, so well known at all public sales, where he sat
in the front rank, watching for good bargains, and keeping cool when all
around him were in a state of fervent excitement.
The two letters he had just read had opened anew in his heart more than
one badly-healed and badly-scarred wound. He was suffering intensely;
and his pain, his wrath, and his hope of vengeance long delayed, gave
to his features a strange expression of energy and nobility. With
his elbows on the table, holding his head in his hands, and looking
apparently into the far past, he seemed to call up the miseries of the
past, and to trace out in the future the vague outlines of some great
scheme. And as his thoughts began to overflow, so to say, he broke out
in a strange, spasmodic monologue,--
“Yes,” he murmured, “yes, I recognize you, Sarah Brandon! Poor child,
poor child! Overcome by such horrible intrigues! And that Daniel, who
intrusted her to the care of Maxime de Brevan--who is he? Why did she
not write to him when she suffered thus? Ah, if she had trusted me! What
a sad fate! And how can I ever hope to make her confide in _me_?”
An old clock struck seven, and the merchant was suddenly recalled to the
present; he trembled in all his limbs.
“Nonsense!” he growled. “I was falling asleep; and that is what I cannot
afford to do. I must go up stairs, and hear the child’s confession.”
Instantly, and with amazing dexterity, he replaced the letters in their
envelopes, dried them, pasted them up again, and smoothed them down,
till every trace of the steam had entirely disappeared. Then looking at
his work with an air of satisfaction, he said,--
“That was not so badly done. An expert in the post-office would not
suspect it. I may risk it.”
And, thus re-assured, he rapidly mounted up to the fifth story; but
there Mrs. Chevassat suddenly barred his way, coming down stairs in a
manner which showed clearly that she had lain in wait for him.
“Well, my dear sir,” she said with her sweetest manner: “so you have
become Miss Henrietta’s banker?”
“Yes; do you object to it?”
“Oh, not at all! It is none of my business, only”--