“Tell him, please,” said the small messenger, sniffing, “that his mother in Paris is very ill—dying—and that he must go at once if he wants to see her alive.” And as Valentine gave an exclamation he added, “A man has come from Paris to say this. The gardener must hurry. That’s all.” And he scampered up the steps again.
Valentine hastened out into the passage, relieved to see in the distance the form of the Abbé, once more a gardener, coming towards her.
“There is bad news for you, Monsieur l’Abbé, I am sorry to say,” she exclaimed when he came within hearing. “Your mother in Paris——”
“Is dying, I suppose,” finished the priest with a strange mixture of concern and irritation. “Do not be distressed, Madame, for I have no mother. It means something quite different. I will come into your room for a moment—but I must leave Mirabel at once. . . . It means, in fact,” he went on, once inside, “that the agent in Paris who has the bulk of the treasure in his possession by now, and who has the task of transferring it to England, is in peril of some kind—has probably fallen under suspicion. There is not a moment to lose if I am to save the money. Fortunately I had not begun Mass . . . Before I go, however . . .” He fumbled hastily in a pocket, and bringing out something wrapped in a scrap of faded silk, slid the contents out on to the table—a glittering, snake-like heap of blood and fire and tarnished gold.
“This is yours, Madame, by every right. I cannot take it!”
Valentine stared at it a moment. “But I do not need it, Monsieur l’Abbé. Take it with the rest!”
“No. It would provide for the journey, Madame, which I implore you to make,” returned M. Chassin, looking at her hard. “And the directions I promised you—have you pencil and paper? M. de Kersaint’s headquarters are now at an old manoir called le Clos-aux-Grives, near Lanvennec in Finistère. If you journey in person to Lanvennec you should go by the route which I am writing down. In the end you will be directed to a little farm called the Ferme des Vieilles, not very far from his headquarters, and on saying there these words in Bas-Breton all will be made easy for you.” Standing, he wrote for a moment or two, blessed her, and remained looking at her, for all his haste, with an expression Valentine could not decipher—the expression of a man torn by perplexity. Then he caught her hand, kissed it, and in a very little had been let out of the door and was hurrying up the steps.
And Mme de Trélan, who had meant to watch him safely past the sentry, stood oblivious with closed eyes. . . .