“And so you think that it was probably to avoid him that she fled?” said I, hazarding a question, to obtain a fuller admission than he had made.
“That is precisely my opinion; and when I tell your Excellency that it was on receiving a letter from Paris, most probably from him, that she hastily sold off everything, you will possibly be of my mind also.”
“And Gabriac, did he ever appear here again?”
“Some say he did; but it is doubtful. One thing, however, is certain: there was a teacher here in Monsieur Jost's academy, a certain Monsieur Augustin, who gave lessons in mathematics, and the secret police gave him some tidings that made him also leave this; and the report is, that Gabriac was somehow the cause of this. Nobody ever thought ill of Augustin, and it is hard to believe he was Gabriac's accomplice.”
I could perceive, from this reply of the host, that he was “all abroad” as to any real knowledge of events, and had only got some faint glimmerings of the truth. I now suffered him to run on about people and occurrences of which I knew nothing, so as to divert him from any attention to myself, and then betook me to my bed with an anxious mind and a wearied one.
I was up early the next morning, and hastened to the château, where I found my old master already up, and walking in the garden. He was, indeed, much changed. Time had told heavily on him too, and he seemed far more feeble than I expected to find him. The letter with which I was charged for him invited him to make me any confidential communication he desired to impart, and to regard me as trustworthy in all respects. He read it over, I should think, several times; for he sat down on a bench, and seemed to study it profoundly.
“You shall have the papers,” said he at length; “but I doubt that they will be found of use now. Dumourier's influence is at an end with his old adherents. The party is broken up; and, so far as human foresight can go, the cause is lost.”
“I ought to tell you, Monsieur Jost,” then broke I in, “that although you are speaking to one who will not abuse your confidence, that it is also one who knows nothing of the plan you speak of.”
He appeared to reflect some minutes over my words, and then said,—
“These are matters, however, not for my judgment. If the Prince think well of the scheme, it is enough.”