“Tell me first what you did do?” said the priest. “No,”—for the boy had instantly turned away and was showing a disposition to go—“I do not want to hear anything about M. de Kersaint. I can see from your face how you feel about it. I only want to know this—how did you convince him . . . if you did . . . that Mme Vidal, who has some brown specks in one of her eyes, was . . . someone he had known before?”
“I showed him,” said Roland, looking at the floor, “a little old locket she gave me when I left. And when he saw that——” He stopped dead.
“Yes, yes,” said the priest, putting a hand on his arm. “When he saw that he was convinced, was he not? That’s all it is necessary for me to know, my child. Please God the rest will come right now.”
“O, Monsieur l’Abbé, couldn’t you tell me what is to come right?”
“Not just yet,” said M. Chassin, smiling. “But you shall know soon. Anyhow, my son, you can go to bed, as I hope you are about to do, with the reflection that you have this evening done the best day’s work you ever did in your young life. . . . I think you have not yet had your scolding for going to Mirabel? No! Well, you will never get it now——from M. de Kersaint.” And adding, “Go to bed! God bless you!” he, to Roland’s astonishment, bestowed upon him a hearty embrace.
And the author of so much disturbance, somewhat comforted, lay down a little later by the side of Artamène and Lucien, whose scrupulous abstention, on his request, from all enquiries about his supper-party seemed a thing phenomenal, an almost chilly lack. So, also, did the absence of the little locket and its chain from Roland’s own neck.
(2)
How well inspired M. l’Abbé Chassin, for his part, had been to lie down to sleep that night almost fully dressed, was proved at about a quarter to five next morning, when he woke to find M. du Ménars, rather scantily clothed, standing beside his bed. He blinked up at him a moment, for if he had expected to be roused by anyone, it was by Gaston himself.
“Do you know where de Brencourt is, Abbé?” asked the Comte’s next in rank. “He is nowhere to be found, and I must see either him or the Marquis at once, the Marquis by preference. But for that I want your permission, as I understand he was not to be disturbed without it.”
“What has happened?” asked the Abbé, getting off the bed.