“Yes, Blanche; and I could name the murderer. Oh! I am not deceived. My father’s murderer is the same man who tried to kill the Marquis de Courtornieu——”
“Jean Lacheneur!”
Martial gravely bowed his head. It was his only reply.
“And will you not denounce him? Will you not demand justice?”
Martial’s face grew gloomy. “What good would it do?” he replied. “I have no material proofs to furnish, and justice requires unimpeachable evidence.” Then, as if communing with his own thoughts, rather than addressing his wife, he added, despondingly, “The Duke de Sairmeuse and the Marquis de Courtornieu have reaped what they sowed. The blood of murdered innocence always calls for vengeance. Sooner or later, the guilty must expiate their crimes.”
Blanche shuddered. Each word found an echo in her own soul. Had her husband intended his words for her, he would scarcely have expressed himself differently. “Martial,” said she, trying to arouse him from his gloomy reverie; “Martial!”
But he did not seem to hear her, and it was in the same tone that he continued; “These Lacheneurs were happy and honoured before our arrival at Sairmeuse. Their conduct was above all praise; their probity amounted to heroism. We might have made them our faithful and devoted friends. It was our duty, as well as in our interests, to have done so. But we did not understand it; we humiliated, ruined, exasperated them. It was a fault for which we must atone. Who knows but what in Jean Lacheneur’s place I should have done exactly what he has done?” He was again silent for a moment; then, with one of those sudden inspirations that sometimes enable one almost to read the future, he resumed: “I know Jean Lacheneur. I can fathom his hatred, and I know that he lives only in the hope of vengeance. It is true that we are very high and he is very low, but that matters little. We have everything to fear. Our millions form a rampart around us, but he will know how to open a breach. And no precautions will save us. At the very moment when we feel ourselves secure, he will be ready to strike. What he will attempt, I don’t know; but his will be a terrible revenge. Remember my words, Blanche, if ruin ever overtakes our house, it will be Jean Lacheneur’s work.”
Aunt Medea and her niece were too horror-stricken to articulate a word, and for five minutes no sound broke the stillness save Martial’s monotonous tread, as he paced up and down the room. At last he paused before his wife. “I have just ordered post-horses,” he said. “You will excuse me for leaving you here alone. I must go to Sairmeuse at once, but I shall not be absent more than a week.”
He left Paris a few hours later, and Blanche became a prey to the most intolerable anxiety. She suffered more than she had done during the days that immediately followed her crime. It was not against phantoms that she had to shield herself now; Chupin existed, and his voice, even if it were not as terrible as the voice of conscience, might make itself heard at any moment. If she had known where to find him, she would have gone to him, and endeavoured, by the payment of a large sum of money, to persuade him to leave France. But he had left the hotel without giving her his address. Then again Martial’s gloomy apprehensions combined to increase her fears, and the mere thought of Jean Lacheneur made her shrink with terror. She could not rid herself of the idea that Jean suspected her guilt, and was watching her, waiting for revenge. Her wish to find Marie-Anne’s child now became stronger than ever; it seemed to her that the abandoned infant might be a protection to her some day. However, where could she find an agent in whom she could confide? At last she remembered that she had heard her father speak of a detective named Chefteux as an exceedingly shrewd fellow, capable of anything, even of honesty if he were well paid. This man was really a perfect scoundrel, one of Fouche’s vilest instruments, who had served and betrayed all parties, and who, at last, after the most barefaced perjury, had been dismissed from the police force. He had then established a private enquiry office, and after some little search Blanche ascertained that he lived in the Place Dauphine. One morning, taking advantage of her husband’s absence, she donned her simplest dress, and, accompanied by Aunt Medea, repaired to Chefteux’s residence. He proved to be a middle-aged man of medium height and inoffensive mien, and he cleverly affected an air of good humour. He ushered his client into a neatly furnished drawing-room, and Blanche at once told him that she was a married woman; that she lived with her husband in the Rue St. Denis; and that one of her sisters who had lately died had been led astray by a man who had disappeared. A child was living, however, whom she was very anxious to find. In short, she narrated an elaborate story which she had prepared in advance, and which, after all, sounded very plausible. Chefteux, however, did not believe a word of it; for as soon as it was finished he tapped Blanche familiarly on the shoulder, and remarked: “In short, my dear, we had our little escapades before our marriage.”
Blanche shrank back as if some venomous reptile had touched her. To be treated in this fashion! she—a Courtornieu, now Duchess de Sairmeuse! “I think you are labouring under a wrong impression,” she haughtily replied.