“I thank God—oh, I thank God he is dead. The little poor infant! And what would he have made of his baby—he, that had the heart to disinherit and condemn to lifelong torture his own brother that he had played with as a child!”
Ned stood amazed.
“His brother!” he cried—“the sailor that perished in the West Indies! But monsieur himself told me of his brother’s fate.”
She gazed at him intensely. During some moments the evidences of a hard mental struggle were in her face. Then she gave out a deep sigh.
“He lied, as always,” she said in a low voice: “Lucien is at this day a wretched prisoner in the Salpétrière, the madman’s hospital of Paris.”
“Théroigne! What do you say!” cried Ned.
“It is true,” she went on. “He was disfigured—driven insane by the explosion; but he was not killed. He returned in his ship to Cherbourg, and there Basile received him of the surgeon and conveyed him to Paris. He was never heard of again. Basile brought to their father the news that Lucien was dead of his wounds and buried at sea. Monseigneur was old and childish, and Paris was far away. That was seven years ago; but it was only recently that, sure of my loyalty, and careless of the respect, of the right to which he had deprived me, he boasted to me of his ancient crime, justifying it, too, on the score that a reconstituted society must, to be effective, be pruned of all disease, moral and physical.”
“He should have hanged himself. Such inhuman villainy! Mademoiselle Lambertine, you have every reason to hate this man.”
“Ah! you think I colour the truth. My God, it is black enough! Why else, himself like a reckless madman, did he squander his double inheritance? He foresaw the redistribution of property; he was ever prophesying it. He must drink deeply of pleasure if he would empty the cup before flinging it into the melting-pot. Moreover, Lucien had been the old man’s favourite; and, ah! he hated him for that.”
She stopped a moment, panting; then went on, her voice lower yet with hoarseness:—