“In this you are greatly mistaken, madame. After the Count de Chalusse’s death, a package of letters, a glove and some withered flowers were found in one of the drawers of his escritoire.”
The baroness started back as if a yawning chasm had suddenly opened at her feet. “My letters!” she exclaimed. “Ah! wretched woman that I am, he kept them. It is all over! I am lost, for of course, they have been read?”
“The ribbon securing them together has never been untied.”
“Is that true? Don’t deceive me! Where are they, then—where are they?”
“Under the protection of the seals affixed by the justice of the peace.”
Madame Trigault tottered, as if she were about to fall. “Then it is only a reprieve,” she moaned, “and I am none the less ruined. Those cursed letters will necessarily be read, and all will be discovered. They will see——” The thought of what they would see endowed her with the energy of despair, and clutching hold of Marguerite’s wrists: “Listen!” said she, approaching so near that her hot breath scorched the girl’s cheeks, “no one must be allowed to see those letters!—it must not be! I will tell you what they contain. I hated my husband; I loved the Count de Chalusse madly, and he had sworn that he would marry me if ever I became a widow. Do you understand now? The name of the poison I obtained—how I proposed to administer it, and what its effects would be—all this is plainly written in my own handwriting and signed—yes, signed—with my own name. The plot failed, but it was none the less real, positive, palpable—and those letters are a proof of it. But they shall never be read—no—not if I am obliged to set fire to the Hotel de Chalusse with my own hand.”
Now the count’s constant terror, the fear with which this woman had inspired him, were explained. He was an accomplice—he also had written no doubt, and she had preserved his letters as he had preserved hers. Crime had bound them indissolubly together.
Horrified beyond expression, Marguerite freed herself from Madame Trigault’s grasp. “I swear to you, madame, that everything any human being can do to save your letters shall be done by me,” she exclaimed.
“And have you any hope of success?”
“Yes,” replied the girl, remembering her friend, the magistrate.