Vautrot had at this time fallen into the depth of want and distress,
which, if aggravated, would prompt him to evil and even to crime. There
are many examples of the extremes to which this kind of intelligence,
at once ambitious, grasping, yet impotent, can transport its possessor.
Vautrot, in awaiting better times, had relapsed into his old role of
hypocrite, in which he had formerly succeeded so well. Only the evening
before he had returned to the house of Madame de la Roche-Jugan, and
made honorable amends for his philosophical heresies; for he was like
the Saxons in the time of Charlemagne, who asked to be baptized every
time they wanted new tunics. Madame de la Roche-Jugan had given a kind
reception to this sad prodigal son, but she chilled perceptibly on
seeing him more discreet than she desired on certain subjects, the
mystery of which she had set her heart upon unravelling.
She was now more preoccupied than ever about the relations which she
suspected to exist between M. de Camors and Madame de Campvallon. These
relations could not but prove fatal to the hopes she had so long founded
on the widowhood of the Marquise and the heritage of the General. The
marriage of M. de Camors had for the moment deceived her, but she was
one of those pious persons who always think evil, and whose suspicions
are soon reawakened. She tried to obtain from Vautrot, who had so long
been intimate with her nephew, some explanation of the mystery; but as
Vautrot was too prudent to enlighten her, she turned him out of doors.
After his encounter with M. de Camors, he immediately turned his steps
toward the Rue St. Dominique, and an hour later Madame de la Roche-Jugan
had the pleasure of knowing all that he knew of the liaison between the
Count and the Marquise. But we remember that he knew everything. These
revelations, though not unexpected, terrified Madame de la Roche-Jugan,
who saw her maternal projects destroyed forever. To her bitter feeling
at this deception was immediately joined, in this base soul, a sudden
thirst for revenge. It was true she had been badly recompensed for her
anonymous letter, by which she had previously attempted to open the
eyes of the unfortunate General; for from that moment the General, the
Marquise, and M. de Camors himself, without an open rupture, let her
feel their marks of contempt, which embittered her heart. She never
would again expose herself to a similar slight of this kind; but she
must assuredly, in the cause of good morals, at once confront the blind
with the culpable, and this time with such proofs as would make the
blow irresistible. By the mere thought, Madame de la Roche-Jugan had
persuaded herself that the new turn events were taking might become
favorable to the expectations which had become the fixed idea of her
life.
Madame de Campvallon destroyed, M. de Camors set aside, the General
would be alone in the world; and it was natural to suppose he would turn
to his young relative Sigismund, if only to recognize the far-sighted
affection and wounded heart of Madame de la Roche-Jugan.
The General, in fact, had by his marriage contract settled all his
property on his wife; but Madame de la Roche-Jugan, who had consulted
a lawyer on this question, knew that he had the power of alienating his
fortune during life, and of stripping his unworthy wife and transferring
it to Sigismund.
Madame de la Roche-Jugan did not shrink from the probability--which was
most likely--of an encounter between the General and Camors. Every one
knows the disdainful intrepidity of women in the matter of duels. She
had no scruple, therefore, in engaging Vautrot in the meritorious work
she meditated. She secured him by some immediate advantages and by
promises; she made him believe the General would recompense him largely.
Vautrot, smarting still from the cut of Camors’s whip on his shoulder,
and ready to kill him with his own hand had he dared, hardly required
the additional stimulus of gain to aid his protectress in her vengeance
by acting as her instrument.
He resolved, however, since he had the opportunity, to put himself, once
for all, beyond misery and want, by cleverly speculating, through the
secret he held, on the great fortune of the General. This secret he
had already given to Madame de Camors under the inspiration of another
sentiment, but he had then in his hands the proofs, which he now was
without.
It was necessary, then, for him to arm himself with new and infallible
proofs; but if the intrigue he was required to unmask still existed,
he did not despair of detecting something certain, aided by the general
knowledge he had of the private habits and ways of Camors. This was the
task to which he applied himself from this moment, day and night, with
an evil ardor of hate and jealousy. The absolute confidence which the
General reposed in his wife and Camors after the latter’s marriage with
Marie de Tecle, had doubtless allowed them to dispense with much of
the mystery and adventure of their intrigue; but that which was ardent,
poetic, and theatrical to the Marquise’s imagination had not been lost.
Love alone was not sufficient for her. She needed danger, scenic effect,
and pleasure heightened by terror. Once or twice, in the early time, she
was reckless enough to leave her house during the night and to return
before day. But she was obliged to renounce these audacious flights,
finding them too perilous.
These nocturnal interviews with M. de Camors were rare, and she had
usually received him at home. This was their arrangement: An open
space, sometimes used as a woodyard, was next the garden of the Hotel
Campvallon. The General had purchased a portion of it and had had a
cottage erected in the midst of a kitchen-garden, and had placed in it,
with his usual kind-heartedness, an old ‘sous-officier’, named Mesnil,
who had served under him in the artillery. This Mesnil enjoyed his
master’s confidence. He was a kind of forester on the property; he lived
in Paris in the winter, but occasionally passed two or three days in
the country whenever the General wished to obtain information about the
crops. Madame de Campvallon and M. de Camors chose the time of these
absences for their dangerous interviews at night. Camors, apprised from
within by some understood signal, entered the enclosure surrounding the
cottage of Mesnil, and thence proceeded to the garden belonging to the
house. Madame de Campvallon always charged herself with the peril that
charmed her--with keeping open one of the windows on the ground floor.
The Parisian custom of lodging the domestics in the attics gave to
this hardihood a sort of security, notwithstanding its being always
hazardous. Near the end of May, one of these occasions, always
impatiently awaited on both sides, presented itself, and M. de Camors at
midnight penetrated into the little garden of the old ‘sous-officier’.
At the moment when he turned the key in the gate of the enclosure, he
thought he heard a slight sound behind him. He turned, cast a rapid
glance over the dark space that surrounded him, and thinking himself
mistaken, entered. An instant after, the shadow of a man appeared at
the angle of a pile of lumber, which was scattered over the carpenter’s
yard. This shadow remained for some time immovable in front of the
windows of the hotel and then plunged again into the darkness.
The following week M. de Camors was at the club one evening, playing
whist with the General. He remarked that the General was not playing
his usual game, and saw also imprinted on his features a painful
preoccupation.
“Are you in pain, General?” said he, after they had finished their game.
“No, no!” said the General; “I am only annoyed--a tiresome affair
between two of my people in the country. I sent Mesnil away this morning
to examine into it.”
The General took a few steps, then returned to Camors and took him
aside: “My friend,” he said, “I deceived you, just now; I have something
on my mind--something very serious. I am even very unhappy!”
“What is the matter?” said Camors, whose heart sank.
“I shall tell you that probably to-morrow. Come, in any case, to see me
to-morrow morning. Won’t you?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“Thanks! Now I shall go--for I am really not well.”
He clasped his hand more affectionately than usual.
“Adieu, my dear child,” he added, and turned around brusquely to hide
the tears which suddenly filled his eyes. M. de Camors experienced for
some moments a lively disquietude, but the friendly and tender adieus
of the General reassured him that it did not relate to himself. Still he
continued astonished and even affected by the emotion of the old man.
Was it not strange? If there was one man in the world whom he loved,
or to whom he would have devoted himself, it was this one whom he had
mortally wronged.
He had, however, good reason to be uneasy; and was wrong in reassuring
himself; for the General in the course of that evening had been informed
of the treachery of his wife--at least he had been prepared for it. Only
he was still ignorant of the name of her accomplice.
Those who informed him were afraid of encountering the blind and
obstinate faith of the General, had they named Camors.
It was probable, also, after what had already occurred, that had
they again pronounced that name, the General would have repelled the
suspicion as a monstrous impossibility, regretting even the thought.
M. de Camors remained until one o’clock at the club and then went to
the Rue Vanneau. He was introduced into the Hotel Campvallon with the
customary precautions; and this time we shall follow him there. In
traversing the garden, he raised his eyes to the General’s window, and
saw the soft light of the night-lamp burning behind the blinds.
The Marquise awaited him at the door of her boudoir, which opened on a
rotunda at an elevation of a few feet. He kissed her hand, and told her
in few words of the General’s sadness.
She replied that she had been very uneasy about his health for some
days. This explanation seemed natural to M. de Camors, and he followed
the Marquise through the dark and silent salon. She held in her hand
a candle, the feeble light of which threw on her delicate features a
strange pallor. When they passed up the long, echoing staircase, the
rustling of her skirt on the steps was the only sound that betrayed her
light movement.
She stopped from time to time, shivering--as if better to taste the
dramatic solemnity that surrounded them--turned her blonde head a little
to look at Camors; then cast on him her inspiring smile, placed her hand
on her heart, as if to say, “I am fearful,” and went on. They reached
her chamber, where a dim lamp faintly illumined the sombre magnificence,
the sculptured wainscotings, and the heavy draperies.
The flame on the hearth which flickered up at intervals, threw a bright
gleam on two or three pictures of the Spanish school, which were the
only decorations of this sumptuous, but stern-looking apartment.
The Marquise sank as if terrified on a divan near the chimney, and
pushed with her feet two cushions before her, on which Camors half
reclined; she then thrust back the thick braids of her hair, and leaned
toward her lover.
“Do you love me to-day?” she asked.
The soft breath of her voice was passing over the face of Camors, when
the door suddenly opened before them. The General entered. The Marquise
and Camors instantly rose to their feet, and standing side by side,
motionless, gazed upon him. The General paused near the door. As he
saw them a shudder passed over his frame, and his face assumed a
livid pallor. For an instant his eye rested on Camors with a stupefied
surprise and almost bewilderment; then he raised his arms over his
head, and his hands struck together with a sharp sound. At this terrible
moment Madame de Campvallon seized the arm of Camors, and threw him a
look so profound, supplicating, and tragic, that it alarmed him.
He roughly pushed her from him, crossed his arms, and waited the result.
The General walked slowly toward him. Suddenly his face became inflamed
with a purple hue; his lips half opened, as if about to deliver some
deadly insult. He advanced rapidly, his hand raised; but after a few
steps the old man suddenly stopped, beat the air with both hands, as if
seeking some support, then staggered and fell forward, striking his
head against the marble mantelpiece, rolled on the carpet, and remained
motionless. There was an ominous silence. A stifled cry from M. de
Camors broke it. At the same time he threw himself on his knees by the
side of the motionless old man, touched first his hand, then his heart.
He saw that he was dead. A thin thread of blood trickled down his pale
forehead where it had struck the marble; but this was only a slight
wound. It was not that which had killed him. It was the treachery of
those two beings whom he had loved, and who, he believed, loved him. His
heart had been broken by the violence of the surprise, the grief, and
the horror.
One look of Camors told Madame de Campvallon she was a widow. She threw
herself on the divan, buried her face in the cushions and sobbed aloud.
Camors still stood, his back against the mantelpiece, his eyes fixed,
wrapped in his own thoughts. He wished in all sincerity of heart that he
could have awakened the dead and restored him to life. He had sworn to
deliver himself up to him without defence, if ever the old man demanded
it of him for forgotten favors, betrayed friendship, and violated honor.
Now he had killed him. If he had not slain him with his own hand, the
crime was still there, in its most hideous form. He saw it before him,
he inhaled its odor--he breathed its blood. An uneasy glance of the
Marquise recalled him to himself and he approached her. They then
conversed together in whispers, and he hastily explained to her the line
of conduct she should adopt.
She must summon the servants, say the General had been taken suddenly
ill, and that on entering her room he had been seized by an apoplectic
stroke.
It was with some effort that she understood she was to wait long enough
before giving the alarm to give Camors sufficient time to escape; and
until then she was to remain in this frightful tete-a-tete, alone with
the dead.
He pitied her, and decided on leaving the hotel by the apartment of M.
de Campvallon, which had a private entrance on the street.
The Marquise immediately rang violently several times, and Camors did
not retire till he heard the sound of hastening feet on the stairs. The
apartment of the General communicated with that of his wife by a short
gallery. There was a suite of apartments--first a study, then his
sleeping-room. M. de Camors traversed this room with feelings we shall
not attempt to describe and gained the street. The surgeon testified
that the General had died from the rupture of a vessel in the heart. Two
days after the interment took place, at which M. de Camors attended. The
same evening he left Paris to join his wife, who had gone to Reuilly the
preceding week.