Mlle. Gilberte started.
“Great heavens!” she exclaimed, “do you, then, believe my father innocent?”
Better than any one else, Mlle. Gilberte must have been convinced of her father’s guilt. Had she not seen him humiliated and trembling before M. de Thaller? Had she not heard him, as it were, acknowledge the truth of the charge that was brought against him? But at twenty hope never forsakes us, even in presence of facts.
And when she understood by M. de Tregars’ silence that she was mistaken,
“It’s madness,” she murmured, dropping her head:
“I feel it but too well. But the heart speaks louder than reason. It is so cruel to be driven to despise one’s father!”
She wiped the tears which filled her eyes, and, in a firmer voice,
“What happened is so incomprehensible!” she went on. “How can I help imagining some one of those mysteries which time alone unravels. For twenty-four hours we have been losing ourselves in idle conjectures, and, always and fatally, we come to this conclusion, that my father must be the victim of some mysterious intrigue.
“M. Chapelain, whom a loss of a hundred and sixty thousand francs has not made particularly indulgent, is of that opinion.”
“And so am I,” exclaimed Marius.