For he had besides to endure the close daily companionship of the man he hated, envied, pretended to despise, admired, the man who—so he chose to put it—had deserted Valentine, the man who nevertheless had had for nineteen years the rights of a husband and to whom perhaps she was, in spite of everything, not indifferent. Had she not all but swooned at the news of his death, though he had so completely cast her off? That she might conceivably care for Gaston de Trélan still, that was the horrible doubt which gnawed at the Comte’s heart—almost more than a doubt in the hours when he allowed himself to realise how little foundation he had for the charges which he had made against the Duc. But he fed himself on those accusations till he had come almost to believe in their truth. They must be true—else why had he found Mme de Trélan under a false name, in an inconceivable situation, and ignorant whether her husband were alive or dead? He must have treated her abominably, or she would long ago have taken steps to join him! And now that, since his visit to Mirabel, suspicion as to de Kersaint’s identity existed no longer, for he knew, the perpetual craving to wound, to avenge himself—and her—together with the intoxicating consciousness of the secret which he held, and which he meant to keep for ever from the one man on earth who had a right to know it, and to whom it would mean, as he guessed, at the lowest estimation release from hell, and perhaps much more—all these were driving him insensibly to a precipice which now he could see gaping in front of him and that other man almost with joy, for even if both of them fell over it he cared little, provided they fell together.
The last day or two had lent a more sinister purpose to his gibes. It began to be clear to him that he could not even wait for the Abbé’s return, which might take place any day now. For what if he brought the news of the presence at Mirabel of something far more wonderful and precious than what he had gone to search for? All would be over then; he would certainly go to her. . . . The prospect was intolerable; the only way to render it impossible of realisation was to provoke de Kersaint—if he could—before the priest’s return. And despite the astonishing armour of self-control which the Marquis had succeeded in buckling on, the latter was beginning to lose patience at last.
The Comte saw it, and hugged the knowledge. Everything that he could say, short of direct personal insult, he had said to him whenever he had the chance, during the last four days. And he knew that his victim, unless he revealed his identity, was helpless to do more than resent his insinuations, since they were all directed against that presumably absent person, the Duc de Trélan. But the veil was wearing very thin now. The hour would soon come when the man who had woven it would be forced to tear it asunder with his own hands.
(2)
It had been a trying day, sultry, and overshadowed by the threat of thunder without its relief. A despatch had come too from a subordinate to say that the zeal of the recruits in his region was sensibly diminishing because only one in four could be armed. As usual for the last three nights, there had been one or two other officers to supper. M. de Brencourt could smile, now, at that effort at self-protection on the Marquis’s part. Hatred, like love, will find out the way. Yet he had not hoped that he could bring about the explosion that very evening.
After the other officers had withdrawn and the supper dishes were removed, M. de Kersaint was obliged to consult his chief of staff about the news which had just arrived. Nor, to do him justice, did the Comte de Brencourt give to the matter in hand much less attention than he would have done had their relations been perfectly normal.
At the end M. de Kersaint remarked that unless the gold from Mirabel was in their hands soon it would come too late to be of use.
“You have not heard further from the Abbé then?” asked his second-in-command, though he was aware that he had not.
“Not a word.”
“He may be arrested—the whole attempt a failure then, for all we know?”