“Ah!” said he, bitterly, “my mother’s tongue has been too long, or else that blind magpie of a notary has been gossiping, notwithstanding my instructions.”
“No; neither your mother nor Maitre Arbillot has been speaking to me. What I know I have learned from a stranger, and I know also that you would be master here if Claude de Buxieres had taken the precaution to write out his will. His negligence on that point has been a wrong to you, which it is my duty to repair.”
“What’s that!” exclaimed Claudet. Then he muttered between his teeth: “You owe me nothing. The law is on your side.”
“I am not in the habit of consulting the law when it is a question of duty. Besides, Monsieur de Buxieres treated you openly as his son; if he had done what he ought, made a legal acknowledgment, you would have the right, even in default of a will, to one half of his patrimony. This half I come to offer to you, and beg of you to accept it.”
Claudet was astonished, and opened his great, fierce brown eyes with amazement. The proposal seemed so incredible that he thought he must be dreaming, and mistrusted what he heard.
“What! You offer me half the inheritance?” faltered he.
“Yes; and I am ready to give you a certified deed of relinquishment as soon as you wish—”
Claudet interrupted him with a violent shrug of the shoulders.
“I make but one condition,” pursued Julien.
“What is it?” asked Claudet, still on the defensive.