“Why do you call her my friend?” asked the Comte with a frown. “She was certainly de Céligny’s, but in no sense mine.”
“No? Well, my friend the concierge, then,” said the priest with a little smile.
De Brencourt’s heart was beating to suffocation as he looked at him. Now, surely, he should learn whether to M. Chassin she were more than a concierge—the main purpose with which he had sought this interview.
“Yes, she was of the greatest service to me,” resumed the priest, “although, indeed, she gave me no active assistance. Poor woman, she had had a sad history.”
“Did she tell it to you?” demanded the Comte quickly.
“Oh, one did not need to be told it,” replied the Abbé.
But the look of relief which at that most palpably appeared on the Comte’s features had the briefest stay there conceivable, for the aumônier went on to say meditatively, “I am glad to think that I was able to make her some recompense. You remember the ruby necklace mentioned in the plan, Monsieur le Comte?”
“You are not going to say that you gave her that!” exclaimed his companion, starting up in his chair.
“Ah, I see you think it an excessive reward?” commented the Abbé, looking at him enquiringly. “So did M. le Marquis, I fancy, when I told him. But come now, Monsieur le Comte, do you not think that it really was no more than her due, that if ever woman had a right to it, she had . . . and that if M. de Kersaint knew all he would say the same?”
But the Comte was quite speechless. The piercing little eyes held his, and he could feel them boring into his very soul. “If ever woman had a right to it” . . . “if M. de Kersaint knew all.” The Abbé knew—he knew! He would never have given her the necklace else. Had he told the Duc yet?