[CHAPTER XVIII]
THE MISSION OF MADEMOISELLE DE FARGAS
Barras, leaving Mademoiselle de Fargas alone for a moment, went to his study; and in a receptacle prepared for his private correspondence he found a letter from the prosecutor of the Republic at Avignon, which gave him an account of the whole affair up to the departure of the Vicomte de Fargas for Nantua.
He gave it to Mademoiselle de Fargas to read. She went through it from end to end, and found that it confirmed what she had heard before she left Avignon.
"Then," she said to Barras, "you have received no news for two days?"
"No," replied the latter.
"That does not speak very well for your police; fortunately, in this instance, I can supply their place."
And she told Barras how she had followed her brother to Nantua; how she had arrived there just in time to learn that he had been abducted from the prison; how the registry had been burned, and how the documents relating to the prosecution had been destroyed; and, finally, how, on awaking the next morning, she had found the body, pierced with a dagger belonging to the Companions of Jehu, on the Place de la Prefecture at Bourg.
Everything which happened in the Midi and the East was so impregnated with mystery that the cleverest agents of the police vainly sought to fathom it. Barras hoped at first that his beautiful visitor could give him information which was not generally known; but her sojourn, both at Nantua and Bourg, while it had brought her in touch with the scene of events and placed their results before her eyes, had taught her nothing new.
All that Barras knew and could tell her was that these events bore a close resemblance to the occurrences in Brittany and the Vendée.