“But is it untrue—is it untrue?” she repeated piteously. “O God, is he alive after all?”
The secret knocked so hard at the door of the priest’s lips that it seemed to him it must force its way out. It was cruelty to keep her in this tension—and almost absurd, too. But he must have a little time to reflect if he were justified in breaking so solemn a promise.
“Calm yourself, Madame la Duchesse,” he said, and, sufficiently agitated himself, sat down beside her. How extraordinary, how dizzying a sensation to be in the actual living presence of her whose loss had turned the whole current of his foster-brother’s being. “Tell me first just what M. de Brencourt said.”
Valentine put her hands to her head in the effort to remember exactly.
“He said that M. de Kersaint had told him it was useless to write to the Duc de Trélan for permission to search here because he had just heard that the Duc was dead—had been dead some time.”
“And M. de Brencourt told you that!”
Valentine’s heart seemed to stand still. “It was false then?”
“I cannot say, Madame, whether it was false or true,” responded M. Chassin, “this only, that M. de Brencourt must have strangely misunderstood M. de Kersaint, for the Marquis has certainly no grounds for asserting that the Duc is dead. I do not say that it is not so, but he has no authority for asserting it . . . and I do not believe that he ever did.”
What was the mystery? The chapel, the lights, were beginning to dance round Valentine. The priest guessed it.
“Madame, this is too much for you. And for me, too. . . . To learn that you are alive—Let us both try to be calm. I will do what I came here to do, and though cannot say a funeral Mass for the Duc de Trélan because . . . because I am convinced that he is still alive, I will say one for his intention and for yours, and for your reunion . . . and for wisdom to know how to act,” he added almost to himself. “But you will give me leave to retain my knowledge of who you are, will you not? As you are aware, I must not, having learnt it as I did, unless you sanction it?”