第323章

de Cardoville to be sufficiently alarming to render it necessary to confine her in a lunatic asylum.'"

"Yes," said Adrienne, with bitterness; "it related to a long interview, which I had with the Princess de Saint-Dizier, my aunt, and which was taken down without my knowledge."

Behold me, then, poring over my shorthand report, and beginning to transcribe it.At the end of the first ten lines, I was struck with stupor.I knew not if I were awake or dreaming.`What! mad?' They must be themselves insane who dare assert so monstrous a proposition!--More and more interested, I continued my reading--I finished it--Oh! then, what shall I say? What I felt, my dear young lady, it is impossible to express.It was sympathy, delight, enthusiasm!"

"Sir," said Adrienne.

"Yes, my dear young lady, enthusiasm! Let not the words shock your modesty.Know that these ideas, so new, so independent, so courageous which you expressed to your aunt with so much brilliancy, are, without your being aware of it, common to you and another person, for whom you will one day feel the most tender and religious respect."

"Of whom do you speak, sir?" cried Mdlle.de Cardoville, more and more interested.

After a moment's apparent hesitation, Rodin resumed, "No, no--it is useless now to inform you of it.All I can tell you, my dear young lady, is that, when I had finished my reading, I ran to Abbe d'Aigrigny's, to convince him of the error into which he had fallen with regard to you.

It was impossible then to find him; but yesterday morning I told him plainly what I thought.He only appeared surprised to find that I could think at all.He received my communications with contemptuous silence.

I thought him deceived; I continued my remonstrances, but quite in vain.

He ordered me to follow him to the house, where the testament of your ancestor was to be opened.I was so blind with regard to the Abbe d'Aigrigny, that it required the successive arrivals of the soldier, of his son, and of Marshal Simon's father, to open my eyes thoroughly.

Their indignation unveiled to me the extent of a conspiracy, plotted long ago, and carried on with terrible ability.Then, I understood why you were confined here as a lunatic; why the daughters of Marshal Simon were imprisoned in a convent.Then a thousand recollections returned to my mind; fragments of letters and statements, which had been given me to copy or decipher, and of which I had never been able to find the explanation, put me on the track of this odious machination.To express then and there the sudden horror I felt at these crimes, would have been to ruin all.I did not make this mistake.I opposed cunning to cunning;

I appeared even more eager than Abbe d'Aigrigny.Had this immense inheritance been destined for me alone, I could not have shown myself more grasping and merciless.Thanks to this stratagem, Abbe d'Aigrigny had no suspicion.A providential accident having rescued the inheritance from his hands, he left the house in a state of profound consternation.

For my part, I felt indescribable joy; for I had now the means of saving and avenging you, my dear young lady.As usual, I went yesterday evening to my place of business.During the absence of the abbe, it was easy for me to peruse the correspondence relative to the inheritance.In this way I was able to unite all the threads of this immense plot.Oh! then, my dear young lady, I remained, struck with horror, in presence of the discoveries that I made, and that I never should have made under any other circumstances."

"What discoveries, sir?"

"There are some secrets which are terrible to those who possess them.Do not ask me to explain, my dear young lady; but, in this examination, the league formed against you and your relations, from motives of insatiable cupidity, appeared to me in all its dark audacity.Thereupon, the lively and deep interest which I already felt for you, my dear young lady, was augmented greatly, and extended itself to the other innocent victims of this infernal conspiracy.In spite of my weakness, I determined to risk all, to unmask the Abbe d'Aigrigny.I collected the necessary proofs, to give my declaration before the magistrate the needful authority; and, this morning, I left the abbe's house without revealing to him my projects.He might have employed some violent method to detain me; yet it would have been cowardly to attack him without warning.Once out of his house, I wrote to him, that I had in my hands proof enough of his crimes, to attack him openly in the face of day.I would accuse, and he must defend himself.I went directly to a magistrate, and you know the rest."

At this juncture, the door opened, and one of the nurses appeared, and said to Rodin: "Sir, the messenger that you and the magistrate sent to the Rue Brise-Miche has just come back."

"Has he left the letter?"

"Yes, sir; and it was taken upstairs directly."

"Very well.Leave us!" The nurse went out.