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When I come to myself I am seated on the box of the carriage which had
conveyed Cecile and M. Andre to the chateau. It had passed us on its
way back.
We are near Benevent.
It is three strong men's work inside the chaise to restrain Marc and
keep him from murdering them.
We drive to the office of police. A little crowd follows us. I am able
to give some formal evidence. Then I am taken home. The unfortunate
man is placed under proper restraint. There is a great buzz of
excitement in Benevent.
Nobody recognises Marc; he is so changed. I do not disclose his name.
It is better to wait the course of events.
After the fearful peril of the last hour, I am astonished to find myself
alive. I am alive, and thankful.
After the struggle in the defile I was unable to leave my bed for some
days. I had been much tried both in mind and body; but I received the
kindest attention from the good friends around me.
In these little places every trifle creates a mighty stir. All Benevent
came to inquire after my health. I had been killed. No; well, then,
nearly done to death by a murderous assassin escaped from the galleys.
The police knew him. It was the same man who five years before had
attempted the life of the Emperor. He had a homicidal mania. There
were a hundred different reports--none of them true.
I was examined and re-examined; examined again, and cross-examined. You
have formed the conclusion that I am a witness, if I choose, out of whom
not much can be got. I battled the Maire, the prefect, the police. I
had been attacked by a man who carried a pistol, and I was rescued by
some persons returning from M. Andre's chateau in a chaise. What could
be more simple? And these are the facts duly entered--wrapped in plenty
of official verbiage--in police record.
I had everybody's sympathy. I had something better. Sympathy one can't
spend; francs one can. A subscription was raised for my benefit. I was
compelled to accept the money--a thousand francs of it. The rest--some
odd hundreds of francs and a bundle of warm clothing, intended for me by
some Benevent valetudinarian, together with thirteen copies of religious
books and two rosaries--I presented to the cure for distribution among
the poor of his parish.
But I had a weight on my mind even francs could not remove--Marc and
Cecile.
She, poor woman, was happy in being rich; in having fine dresses and
gaiety; in being an old man's idol. It is so with women. She was, I
found, the donor of some of the religious books and of one of the two
rosaries. Perhaps, then, at the chateau all was not happiness for the
mistress. At times she still mourned for Marc.
And Marc?
After months of the greatest anxiety on my part, lest in his ravings he
should betray himself, he was happily restored to reason.
The doctor said it happened through his seeing me.
He knew me as I sat in the room with him. His keepers said he had raved
always of "Cecile, Cecile!" What of it? It led to no suspicion of his
identity with Marc Debois. Are there not hundreds of Ceciles?
The wretched man's memory was a blank. As I had done him a most
terrible injury, I tried to repair--in some slight degree--to atone.
He was lodged with me in my dear mother's cottage. I used to lead him
about like a child. I took him every day to the sea to see the
shipping. This by degrees brought back his memory of his profession.
At last all came back, save the scene in the defile. He told me he had
also been on a desolate island. Whether the same as mine, or an
adjacent desert, I shall never know. A ship took him off, too, and
landed him at Marseilles. He tramped it to Benevent, and arrived there
in time to see Cecile just married to M. Andre.
No wonder that his mind gave way.
He implored my forgiveness.