“I am afraid I have done it now,” said the priest placidly “but only because I was sure you had guessed it.”
“How could you be sure?” growled the other. “Did—surely he did not tell you? Only last night he asked me to respect his confidence!”
“Ah!” said the priest. “After you . . . saved his life, no doubt! Well, Monsieur de Brencourt, you can still respect it. And since you do know it—I thought you did—I am sure that as a gentleman you must regret the expressions you used, in ignorance, of M. de Trélan, that night at Hennebont. But you have no doubt made that all right with him.”
“That,” said M. de Brencourt, with hostility, “is a matter which concerns M. de Trélan and myself, not you, Monsieur Chassin.—And as regards confidences, it seems to me that you were going very near betraying one yourself just now. If I had not known . . . are you usually in the habit of doing that?” For now there was a fresh track of alarm; had the priest betrayed this particular confidence to one at Mirabel—told the concierge, even without knowing who she was, that he really came from Mirabel’s master? It was not impossible. He waited in acute tension.
“No,” said the Abbé composedly, “without wishing to belaud myself, it is a point I am rather particular upon. But I assured the Marquis—the Duc—some time ago that he would have to tell you sooner or later. I wonder he did not do so before you went to Mirabel. Did you not guess it then, from the knowledge he displayed of the place?”
“Monsieur l’Abbé,” replied the Comte, with more than irritation, “it does not seem to me to matter much what I guessed or what I did not guess. Enough that I did not impart my speculations to any living soul.”
“No, I am sure you were very careful not to do that!” said the Abbé warmly, and he looked at him harder than ever.
M. de Brencourt got up and went to the window. He must know, this man. And yet . . . did he? He would have told de Trélan at once, if he did; a bullet in the arm would not have prevented the reception of that news. The Comte would almost have given his soul to make sure, but it was so difficult to plumb the extent of the priest’s knowledge without exposing his own. A sort of fascination caused him to recur to the subject of Mirabel, but he approached it this time from a safer side.
“When am I to have an account of your securing of the treasure, Abbé?” he asked, throwing himself down on the window-seat. “It was under the hearth in the sallette, I suppose?”
And presumably his fellow-adventurer felt he owed him this, for he gave him, on this invitation, a fairly circumstantial account of his success at Mirabel and his peregrinations afterwards. The Comte listened from the window with the closest attention. After all, she did not seem to have played so much part in the business as he had feared. Perhaps——