The Clique of Gold | Page 7

your honor. H."
The old man was furious.
"The honor of Maxime de Brevan!" he growled with a voice of intense hatred,--"the honor of Maxime de Brevan!"
But his terrible excitement did not keep him from manipulating the other letter, addressed to Count Ville-Handry, in the same manner. The operation was successful; and, without the slightest hesitation, he read:--
"Dear father,--Broken down with anxiety, and faint from exhaustion, I have waited till this morning for an answer to my humble letter, which I had written to you on my knees.
"You have never replied to it; you are inexorable. I see I must die. I shall die. Alas! I can hardly say I die willingly.
"I must appear very guilty in your eyes, father, that you should abandon me thus to the hatred of Sarah Brandon and her people. And yet--ah! I have suffered terribly. I have struggled hard before I could make up my mind to leave your house,--the house where my mother had died, where I had been so happy, and so tenderly beloved as a child by both of you. Ah, if you but knew!
"And yet it was so little I asked of you!--barely enough to bury my undeserved disgrace in a convent.
"Yes, undeserved, father; for I tell you at this hour, when no one utters a falsehood, if my reputation was lost, my honor was not lost."
Big tears rolled down the cheeks of the old man; and he said in a half-stifled voice,--
"Poor, poor child! And to think that for a whole year I have lived under the same roof with her, without knowing it. But I am here. I am still in time. Oh, what a friend /chance/ can be when it chooses!"
Most assuredly not one of the inmates of the house would have recognized Papa Ravinet at this moment; he was literally transfigured. He was no longer the cunning dealer in second-hand articles, the old scamp with the sharp, vulgar face, so well known at all public sales, where he sat in the front rank, watching for good bargains, and keeping cool when all around him were in a state of fervent excitement.
The two letters he had just read had opened anew in his heart more than one badly-healed and badly-scarred wound. He was suffering intensely; and his pain, his wrath, and his hope of vengeance long delayed, gave to his features a strange expression of energy and nobility. With his elbows on the table, holding his head in his hands, and looking apparently into the far past, he seemed to call up the miseries of the past, and to trace out in the future the vague outlines of some great scheme. And as his thoughts began to overflow, so to say, he broke out in a strange, spasmodic monologue,--
"Yes," he murmured, "yes, I recognize you, Sarah Brandon! Poor child, poor child! Overcome by such horrible intrigues! And that Daniel, who intrusted her to the care of Maxime de Brevan--who is he? Why did she not write to him when she suffered thus? Ah, if she had trusted me! What a sad fate! And how can I ever hope to make her confide in /me/?"
An old clock struck seven, and the merchant was suddenly recalled to the present; he trembled in all his limbs.
"Nonsense!" he growled. "I was falling asleep; and that is what I cannot afford to do. I must go up stairs, and hear the child's confession."
Instantly, and with amazing dexterity, he replaced the letters in their envelopes, dried them, pasted them up again, and smoothed them down, till every trace of the steam had entirely disappeared. Then looking at his work with an air of satisfaction, he said,--
"That was not so badly done. An expert in the post-office would not suspect it. I may risk it."
And, thus re-assured, he rapidly mounted up to the fifth story; but there Mrs. Chevassat suddenly barred his way, coming down stairs in a manner which showed clearly that she had lain in wait for him.
"Well, my dear sir," she said with her sweetest manner: "so you have become Miss Henrietta's banker?"
"Yes; do you object to it?"
"Oh, not at all! It is none of my business, only"--
She stopped, smiling wickedly, and then added,--
"Only she is a prodigiously pretty girl; and I was just saying to myself, 'Upon my word, M. Ravinet's taste is not bad.'"
The merchant was on the point of giving her a pretty sharp, indignant reply; but he controlled himself, because he knew how important it was to mislead the woman; and, forcing himself to smile, he said,--
"You know I count upon your being discreet."
When he got up, he found that he ought, at least, to give credit to Mamma Chevassat and the two ladies from the first floor, for having employed their time well, and for having skilfully made