“Pray and wait, Maurice, I must act alone in this matter, but be assured that I will do everything that is humanly possible. It is my duty to do so, for am I not the cause of all your misfortune?”
Absorbed in the thought of the task before her, Marie-Anne had failed to remark a stranger who had arrived during her absence—an old white-haired peasant. The abbe now drew her attention to him. “Here is a courageous friend,” said he, “who ever since morning, has been searching for you everywhere, in order to give you some news of your father.”
Marie-Anne could scarcely falter her gratitude. “Oh, you need not thank me,” said the old peasant. “I said to myself: ‘The poor girl must be terribly anxious, and I ought to relieve her of her misery.’ So I came to tell you that M. Lacheneur is safe and well, except for a wound in the leg, which causes him considerable suffering, but which will be healed in a few weeks. My son-in-law, who was hunting yesterday in the mountains, met him near the frontier in company of two of his friends. By this time he must be in Piedmont, beyond the reach of the gendarmes.”
“Let us hope now,” said the abbe, “that we shall soon hear what has become of Jean.”
“I know already,” replied Marie-Anne, “that my brother has been badly wounded, but some kind friends are caring for him.”
Maurice, the abbe, and the retired officers now surrounded the brave young girl. They wished to know what she was about to attempt, and to dissuade her from incurring useless danger. But she refused to reply to their pressing questions; and when they suggested accompanying her, or, at least, following her at a distance, she declared that she must go alone. “However, I shall be here again in a couple of hours,” she said, “and then I shall be able to tell you if there is anything else to be done.” With these words she hastened away.
To obtain an audience of the Duke de Sairmeuse was certainly a difficult matter, as Maurice and the abbe had ascertained on the previous day. Besieged by weeping and heart-broken families, his grace had shut himself up securely, fearing, perhaps, that he might be moved by their entreaties. Marie-Anne was aware of this, but she was not at all anxious, for by employing the same word that Chanlouineau had used—that same word “revelation”—she was certain to obtain a hearing. When she reached the Duke de Sairmeuse’s mansion she found three or four lacqueys talking in front of the principal entrance.
“I am the daughter of M. Lacheneur,” said she, speaking to one of them. “I must see the duke at once, on matters connected with the revolt.”
“The duke is absent.”
“I come to make a revelation.”