"Within five minutes," she answered, "if you will first hear me."
"What are you to him?" I said.
She blushed vividly. "I shall be his wife or no one's," she said; and
she looked a moment at my wife.
"Well, say what you have to say!" I cried roughly.
"This paper, which it is alleged that he stole--it was not found on
him; but in the hollow of a tree."
"Within three paces of him! And what was he doing there?"
"He came to meet me," she answered, her voice trembling slightly. "He
could have told you so, but he would not shame me."
"This is true?" I said, eyeing her closely.
"I swear it!" she answered, clasping her hands. And then, with a
sudden flash of rage, "Will the other woman swear to her tale?" she
cried.
"Ha!" I said, "what other woman?"
"The woman who sent you to that place," she answered. "He would not
tell me her name, or I would go to her now and wring the truth from
her. But he confessed to me that he had let a woman into the secret of
our meeting; and this is her work."
I stood a moment pondering, with my eyes on the girl's excited face,
and my thoughts, following this new clue through the maze of recent
events; wherein I could not fail to see that it led to a very different
conclusion from that at which I had arrived. If Vilain had been
foolish enough to wind up his love-passages with Mademoiselle de Mars
by confiding to her his passion for the Figeac, and even the place and
time at which the latter was so imprudent as to meet him, I could fancy
the deserted mistress laying this plot; and first placing the packet
where we found it, and then punishing her lover by laying the theft at
his door. True, he might be guilty; and it might be only confession and
betrayal on which jealousy had thrust her. But the longer I considered
the whole of the circumstances, as well as the young man's character,
and the lengths to which I knew a woman's passion would carry her, the
more probable seemed the explanation I had just received.
Nevertheless, I did not at once express my opinion; but veiling the
chagrin I naturally felt at the simple part I had been led to play--in
the event I now thought probable--I sharply ordered Mademoiselle de
Figeac to retire into the next room; and then I requested my wife to
fetch her maid.
Mademoiselle de Mars had been three days in solitary confinement, and
might be taken to have repented of her rash accusation were it
baseless. I counted somewhat on this; and more on the effect of so
sudden a summons to my presence. But at first sight it seemed that I
did so without cause. Instead of the agitation which she had displayed
when brought before me to confess, she now showed herself quiet and
even sullen; nor did the gleam of passion, which I thought that I
discerned smouldering in her dark eyes, seem to promise either weakness
or repentance. However, I had too often observed the power of the
unknown over a guilty conscience to despair of eliciting the truth.
"I want to ask you two or three questions," I said civilly. "First, was
M. de Vilain with you when you placed the paper in the hollow of the
tree? Or were you alone?"
I saw her eyelids quiver as with sudden fear, and her voice shook as
she stammered, "When I placed the paper?"
"Yes," I said, "when you placed the paper. I have reason to know that
you did it. I wish to learn whether he was present, or you did it
merely under his orders?"
She looked at me, her face a shade paler, and I do not doubt that her
mind was on the rack to divine how much I knew, and how far she might
deny and how far confess. My tone seemed to encourage frankness,
however, and in a moment she said, "I placed it under his directions."
"Yes," I said drily, my last doubt resolved by the admission; "but that
being so, why did Vilain go to the spot?"
She grew still a shade paler, but in a moment she answered, "To meet
the agent."
"Then why did you place the paper in the tree?"
She saw the difficulty in which she had placed herself, and for an
instant she stared at me with the look of a wild animal caught in a
trap. Then, "In case the agent was late," she muttered.
"But since Vilain had to go to the spot, why did he not deposit the
paper in the tree himself? Why did he send you to the place
beforehand? Why did--" and then I broke off and cried harshly, "Shall
I tell you why? Shall I tell you why, you false jade?"
She cowered away from me at the words, and stood terror-stricken,
gazing at me like one fascinated. But she did not answer.
"Because," I cried, "your story is a tissue of lies! Because it was
you, and you only, who stole this paper! Because--Down on your knees!
down on your knees!" I thundered, "and confess! Confess, or I will
have you whipped at the cart's tail, like the false witness you are!"
She threw herself down shrieking, and caught my wife by the skirts, and
in a breath had said all I wanted; and more than enough to show me that
I had suspected Vilain without cause, and both played the simpleton
myself and harried my household to distraction.
So far good. I could arrange matters with Vilain, and probably avoid
publicity. But what was now to be done with her?
In the case of a man I should have thought no punishment too severe,
and the utmost rigour of the law too tender for such perfidy; but as
she was a woman, and young, and under my wife's protection, I
hesitated. Finally, the Duchess interceding, I leaned to the side of
that mercy which the girl had not shown to her lover; and thought her
sufficiently punished, at the moment by the presence of Mademoiselle de
Figeac whom I called into the room to witness her humiliation, and in
the future by dismissal from my household. As this imported banishment
to her father's country-house, where her mother, a shrewd old
Bearnaise, saved pence and counted lentils into the soup, and saw
company once a quarter, I had perhaps reason to be content with her
chastisement.
For the rest I sent for M. de Vilain, and by finding him employment in
the finances, and interceding for him with the old Vicomte de Figeac,
confirmed him in the attachment he had begun to feel for me before this
unlucky event; nor do I doubt that I should have been able in time to
advance him to a post worthy of the talents I discerned in him. But,
alas, the deplorable crime, which so soon deprived me at one blow of my
master and of power, put an end to this, among other and greater
schemes.