VIII.

       Table of Contents

      The justice of the peace and Mademoiselle Marguerite were at last alone in M. de Chalusse’s study. This room, which the count had preferred above all others, was a spacious, magnificent, but rather gloomy apartment, with lofty walls and dark, richly carved furniture. Its present aspect was more than ever solemn and lugubrious, for it gave one a chill to see the bands of white tape affixed to the locks of the cabinets and bookcases. When the magistrate had installed himself in the count’s arm-chair, and the girl had taken a seat near him, they remained looking at each other in silence for a few moments. The magistrate was asking himself how he should begin. Having fathomed Mademoiselle Marguerite’s extreme sensitiveness and reserve, he said to himself that if he offended or alarmed her, she would refuse him her confidence, in which case he would be powerless to serve her as he wished to do. He had, in fact, an almost passionate desire to be of service to her, feeling himself drawn toward her by an inexplicable feeling of sympathy, in which esteem, respect, and admiration alike were blended, though he had only known her for a few hours. Still, he must make a beginning. “Mademoiselle,” he said, at last, “I abstained from questioning you before the servants—and if I take the liberty of doing so now, it is not, believe me, out of any idle curiosity; moreover, you are not compelled to answer me. But you are young—and I am an old man; and it is my duty—even if my heart did not urge me to do so—to offer you the aid of my experience——”

      “Speak, monsieur,” interrupted Marguerite. “I will answer your questions frankly, or else not answer them at all.”

      “To resume, then,” said he, “I am told that M. de Chalusse has no relatives, near or remote. Is this the truth?”

      “So far as I know—yes, monsieur. Still, I have heard it said that a sister of his, Mademoiselle Hermine de Chalusse, abandoned her home twenty-five or thirty years ago, when she was about my age, and that she has never received her share of the enormous fortune left by her parents.”

      “And has this sister never given any sign of life?”

      “Never! Still, monsieur, I have promised you to be perfectly frank. That letter which the Count de Chalusse received yesterday, that letter which I regard as the cause of his death—well, I have a presentiment that it came from his sister. It could only have been written by her or—by that other person whose letters—and souvenirs—you found in the escritoire.”

      “And—this other person—who can she be?” As the young girl made no reply, the magistrate did not insist, but continued: “And you, my child, who are you?”

      She made a gesture of sorrowful resignation, and then, in a voice faltering with emotion, she answered: “I do not know, monsieur. Perhaps I am the count’s daughter. I should be telling an untruth if I said that was not my belief. Yes, I believe it, but I have never been certain of it. Sometimes I have believed, sometimes I have doubted it. On certain days I have said to myself, ‘Yes, it must be so!’ and I have longed to throw my arms around his neck. But at other times I have exclaimed: ‘No, it isn’t possible!’ and I have almost hated him. Besides, he never said a word on the subject—never a decisive word, at least. When I saw him for the first time, six years ago, I judged by the manner in which he forbade me to call him ‘father,’ that he would never answer any question I might ask on the subject.”

      If there was a man in the world inaccessible to idle curiosity, it was certainly this magistrate, whose profession condemned him to listen every day to family grievances, neighborly quarrels, complaints, accusations, and slander. And yet as he listened to Mademoiselle Marguerite, he experienced that strange disquietude which seizes hold of a person when a puzzling problem is presented. “Allow me to believe that many decisive proofs may have escaped your notice on account of your inexperience,” he said.

      But interrupting him with a gesture, she sadly remarked: “You are mistaken; I am not inexperienced.”

      He could not help smiling at what he considered her self-conceit. “Poor child!” said he; “how old are you? Eighteen?”

      She shook her head. “Yes, by my certificate of birth I am only eighteen; but by the sufferings I have endured I am, perhaps, older than you are, monsieur, despite your white hair. Those who have lived such a life as I have, are never young; they are old in suffering, even in their childhood. And if by experience you mean lack of confidence, a knowledge of good and evil, distrust of everything and everybody, mine, young girl though I be, will no doubt equal yours.” She paused, hesitated for a moment, and then continued: “But why should I wait for you to question me? It is neither sincere nor dignified on my part to do so. The person who claims counsel owes absolute frankness to his adviser. I will speak to you as if I were communing with my own soul. I will tell you what no person has ever known—no one, not even Pascal. And believe me, my past life was full of bitter misery, although you find me here in this splendid house. But I have nothing to conceal; and if I have cause to blush, it is for others, not for myself.”

      Perhaps she was impelled by an irresistible desire to relieve her overburdened heart, after long years of self-restraint; perhaps she no longer felt sure of herself, and desired some other advice than the dictates of her conscience, in presence of the calamity which had befallen her. At all events, too much engrossed in her own thoughts to heed the magistrate’s surprise, or hear the words he faltered, she rose from her seat, and, with her hands pressed tightly on her throbbing brow, she began to tell the story of her life.

      “My first recollections,” she said, “are of a narrow, cheerless courtyard, surrounded by grim and massive walls, so high that I could scarcely see the top of them. At noontime in summer the sun visited one little corner, where there was a stone bench; but in winter it never showed itself at all. There were five or six small, scrubby trees, with moss-grown trunks and feeble branches, which put forth a few yellow leaves at springtime. We were some thirty children who assembled in this courtyard—children from five to eight years old, all clad alike in brown dresses, with a little blue handkerchief tied about our shoulders. We all wore blue caps on week-days, and white ones on Sundays, with woollen stockings, thick shoes, and a black ribbon, with a large metal cross dangling from our necks. Among us moved the good sisters, silent and sad, with their hands crossed in their large sleeves, their faces as white as their snowy caps, and their long strings of beads, set off with numerous copper medals, clanking when they walked like prisoners’ chains. As a rule, each face wore the same expression of resignation, unvarying gentleness, and inexhaustible patience. But there were some who wore it only as one wears a mask—some whose eyes gleamed at times with passion, and who vented their cold, bitter anger upon us defenceless children. However, there was one sister, still young and very fair, whose manner was so gentle and so sad that even I, with my mere infantile intelligence, felt that she must have some terrible sorrow. During play-time she often took me on her knee and embraced me with convulsive tenderness, murmuring: ‘Dear little one! darling little one!’ Sometimes her endearments were irksome to me, but I never allowed her to see it, for fear of making her still more sad; and