The woman left him. He threw off his clothes—flung himself on the bed—and did not wake till noon.
When his eyes unclosed—when they rested on that calm chamber, with its air of health, and cleanliness, and comfort, it was long before he could convince himself that he was yet awake. He missed the loud, deep voice of Gawtrey—the smoke of the dead man’s meerschaum—the gloomy garret—the distained walls—the stealthy whisper of the loathed Birnie; slowly the life led and the life gone within the last twelve hours grew upon his struggling memory. He groaned, and turned uneasily round, when the door slightly opened, and he sprung up fiercely,—
“Who is there?”
“It is only I, sir,” answered Madame Dufour. “I have been in three times to see if you were stirring. There is a letter I believe for you, sir; though there is no name to it,” and she laid the letter on the chair beside him. Did it come from her—the saving angel? He seized it. The cover was blank; it was sealed with a small device, as of a ring seal. He tore it open, and found four billets de banque for 1,000 francs each,—a sum equivalent in our money to about L160.
“Who sent this, the—the lady from whom I brought the note?”
“Madame de Merville? certainly not, sir,” said Madame Dufour, who, with the privilege of age, was now unscrupulously filling the water-jugs and settling the toilette-table. “A young man called about two hours after you had gone to bed; and, describing you, inquired if you lodged here, and what your name was. I said you had just arrived, and that I did not yet know your name. So he went away, and came again half an hour afterwards with this letter, which he charged me to deliver to you safely.”
“A young man—a gentleman?”
“No, sir; he seemed a smart but common sort of lad.” For the unsophisticated Madame Dufour did not discover in the plain black frock and drab gaiters of the bearer of that letter the simple livery of an English gentleman’s groom.
Whom could it come from, if not from Madame de Merville? Perhaps one of Gawtrey’s late friends. A suspicion of Arthur Beaufort crossed him, but he indignantly dismissed it. Men are seldom credulous of what they are unwilling to believe. What kindness had the Beauforts hitherto shown him?—Left his mother to perish broken-hearted—stolen from him his brother, and steeled, in that brother, the only heart wherein he had a right to look for gratitude and love! No, it must be Madame de Merville. He dismissed Madame Dufour for pen and paper—rose—wrote a letter to Eugenie—grateful, but proud, and inclosed the notes. He then summoned Madame Dufour, and sent her with his despatch.
“Ah, madame,” said the ci-devant bonne, when she found herself in Eugenie’s presence. “The poor lad! how handsome he is, and how shameful in the Vicomte to let him wear such clothes!”