“Much wiser, Madame,” said the priest, wiping a hot brow with his sleeve. “And did you say that to-morrow was a visiting day? Then I shall be back in the front, very active, for all eyes to see. I have no business to be here at the back at all.”
“But you have a good reason for it?” suggested Mme de Trélan.
The aumônier dropped his voice. “There is a sort of underground passage leading from this grotto—which is of course of later construction—to the place under the cheminée royale in the sallette where Louis-Antoine de Trélan hid his money. Once I have unblocked the end of it, now hidden by those rocks, I hope to find the rest easy.”
“M. de Céligny did not know of that!”
“The misguided youth never got more than a moment’s sight of the plan.”
“And M. de Brencourt?”
“He preferred to attack the other end, in the château, as likely to prove shorter. The result you know.”
“And when you have got the money?”
“I have to convey it by degrees—or rather, cause it to be conveyed—to an agent in Paris, and he to England to be melted down. It is of course useless in its present state. When I reach it I calculate that it will take me three or four days to get it away, a portion at a time. It will be too heavy to take all at once, for so much weight in so little bulk would excite suspicion.”
“I see that you are coming earlier,” said Valentine. “Does that mean that you will be able to say Mass? I have found all that is requisite.”