However, the marquis had resumed his scarcely coherent narrative. “Was I dreaming?” he continued. “No, it was Lacheneur, Lacheneur and none other who stood in front of me. I am sure of it, and the proof is that he reminded me of a circumstance which occurred in my youth, and which was known only to him and me. It happened during the Reign of Terror. He was all-powerful in Montaignac; and I was accused of being in correspondence with the emigres. My property had been confiscated; and I was every moment expecting to feel the executioner’s hand on my shoulder, when Lacheneur took me to his house. He concealed me; furnished me with a passport; saved my money, and saved my life as well; and yet—and yet I sentenced him to death. That’s the reason why I’ve seen him again. I must join him; he told me so—I’m a dying man!” With these words the marquis fell back on his pillows, pulled the bed clothes over his face, and lied there so rigid and motionless that one might readily have supposed the counterpane covered some inanimate corpse.
Mute with horror, the servants exchanged frightened glances. Such baseness and ingratitude amazed them. They could not understand why, under such circumstances, the marquis had not pardoned Lacheneur. Blanche alone retained her presence of mind. Turning to her father’s valet, she said: “Hasn’t some one tried to injure my father?”
“I beg your pardon, mademoiselle, some one most certainly has: a little more and Monsieur le Marquis would have been killed.”
“How do you know that?”
“In undressing the marquis I noticed that he had received a wound in the head. I also examined his hat, and I found three holes in it, which could only have been made by bullets.”
“Then some one must have tried to murder my father,” murmured Blanche, “and this attack of delirium has been brought on by fright. How can we find out who the would-be murderer was?”
The valet shook his head. “I suspect that old poacher, who is always prowling about here, a man named—Chupin.”
“No, it couldn’t have been him.”
“Ah! I am almost sure of it. There’s no one else in the neighbourhood capable of such an evil deed.”
Blanche could not give her reasons for declaring Chupin innocent. Nothing in the world would have induced her to admit that she had met him, talked with him for more than half-an-hour, and only just parted from him. So she remained silent.