The day was breaking, and he declared that he would disguise himself as best he could, and go to Montaignac at once. It was not without a feeling of anxiety that Madame d’Escorval heard him speak in this manner. She was trembling for her husband’s life, and now her son must hurry into danger. Perhaps before the day was over neither husband nor son would be left to her. And yet she did not forbid his going; for she felt that he was only fulfilling a sacred duty. She would have loved him less had she supposed him capable of cowardly hesitation, and would have dried her tears, if necessary to bid him “go.” Moreover, was not anything preferable to the agony of suspense which they had been enduring for hours?
Maurice had reached the drawing-room door when the abbe called him back. “You must certainly go to Montaignac,” said he, “but it would be folly to disguise yourself. You would surely be recognized, and the saying: ‘He who conceals himself is guilty,’ would at once be applied to you. You must proceed openly, with head erect, and you must even exaggerate the assurance of innocence. Go straight to the Duke de Sairmeuse and the Marquis de Courtornieu. I will accompany you; we will go together in the carriage.”
“Take this advice, Maurice,” said Madame d’Escorval, seeing that her son seemed undecided, “the abbe knows what is best much better than we do.”
The cure had not waited for the assent which Maurice gave to his mother’s words, but had already gone to order the carriage to be got ready. On the other hand, Madame d’Escorval now left the room to write a few lines to a lady friend, whose husband had considerable influence in Montaignac; and Maurice and Marie-Anne were thus left alone. This was the first moment of freedom they had found since Marie-Anne’s confession. “My darling,” whispered Maurice, clasping the young girl to his heart, “I did not think it was possible to love more fondly than I loved you yesterday; but now—— And you—you wish for death when another precious life depends on yours.”
“I was terrified,” faltered Marie-Anne. “I was terrified at the prospect of shame which I saw—which I still see before me; but now I am resigned. My frailty deserves punishment, and I must submit to the insults and disgrace awaiting me.”
“Insults! Let any one dare insult you! But will you not now be my wife in the sight of men, as you are in the sight of heaven? The failure of your father’s scheme sets you free!”
“No, no, Maurice, I am not free! Ah! it is you who are pitiless! I see only too well that you curse me, that you curse the day when we met for the first time! Confess it!” And so speaking Marie-Anne lifted her streaming eyes to his. “As for me,” she resumed, “I could not say so. Grievous my fault is, no doubt, I am disgraced and humiliated, but still——”
She could not finish; Maurice drew her to him, and their lips and their tears met in one long embrace. “You love me,” he exclaimed, “you love me in spite of everything! We shall succeed. I will save your father, and mine—I will save your brother too.”
He had no time to say more. The baron’s berline, to which a couple of horses had been harnessed, that they might reach Montaignac with greater speed, was waiting in the courtyard; and the abbe’s voice could be heard calling on Maurice to make haste, and Madame d’Escorval, moreover, now returned, carrying a letter which she handed to her son. One long, last embrace, and then leaving the two women to their tears and prayers, Maurice and the abbe sprang into the carriage, which was soon dashing along the high road towards Montaignac.
“If, by confessing your own guilt, you could save your father,” said the Abbe Midon as they rolled through the village of Sairmeuse, “I should tell you to give yourself up, and confess the whole truth. Such would be your duty. But such a sacrifice would be not only useless, but dangerous. Your confessions of guilt would only implicate your father still more. You would be arrested, but they would not release him, and you would both be tried and convicted. Let us then allow—I will not say justice, for that would be blasphemy—but these blood-thirsty men, who call themselves judges, to pursue their course, and attribute all that you yourself have done to your father. When the trial comes on you will be able to prove his innocence, and to produce alibis of so unimpeachable a character, that they will be forced to acquit him. And I understand the people of our province well enough to feel sure that none of them will reveal our stratagem.”