In his excitement, he was about to commit a terrible blunder. He saw it in time, and checked himself.
“For the sake of whom?” asked Madame d’Argeles, in an altered voice.
“For the sake of Mademoiselle Marguerite, madame; for the sake of this poor child, who is your niece. The count never having acknowledged her as his daughter, she will be left actually without bread, while her father’s millions go to enrich the state.”
“That will suffice, monsieur; I will think of it. And now, enough!”
The dismissal was so imperious that M. Fortunat bowed and went off, completely bewildered by this denouement. “She’s crazy!” he said to himself. “Crazy in the fullest sense of the word. She refuses the count’s millions from a silly fear of telling people that she belongs to the Chalusse family. She threatened her brother, but she would never have carried her threats into execution. And she prefers her present position to such a fortune. What lunacy!” But, although he was disappointed and angry, he did not by any means despair. “Fortunately for me,” he thought, “this proud and haughty lady has a son somewhere in the world. And she’ll do for him what she would not consent to do for herself. Through her, with a little patience and Victor Chupin’s aid, I shall succeed in discovering this boy. He must be an intelligent youth—and we’ll see if he surrenders his millions as easily as his mamma does.”
XVI.
It is a terrible task to break suddenly with one’s past, without even having had time for preparation; to renounce the life one has so far lived, to return to the starting point, and begin existence anew; to abandon everything—the position one has gained, the work one has become familiar with, every fondly cherished hope, and friend, and habit; to forsake the known to plunge into the unknown, to leave the certain for the uncertain, and desert light for darkness; to cast one’s identity aside, assume a strange individuality, become a living lie, change name, position, face, and clothes—in one phrase, to cease to be one’s self, in order to become some one else.
This is indeed, a terrible ordeal, and requires an amount of resolution and energy which few human beings possess. The boldest hesitate before such a sacrifice, and many a man has surrendered himself to justice rather than resort to this last extremity. And yet this was what Pascal Ferailleur had the courage to do, on the morrow of the shameful conspiracy that had deprived him of his good name. When his mother’s exhortations and Baron Trigault’s encouraging words had restored his wonted clearness of perception, the only course he felt disposed to pursue was to disappear and fly from the storm of slander and contempt; and then, in a secure hiding-place, to watch for the time and opportunity of rehabilitation and revenge.
Madame Ferailleur and her son made all needful arrangements. “I shall start out at once,” said Pascal, “and before two hours have elapsed I shall have found a modest lodging, where we must conceal ourselves for the present. I know a locality that will suit us, and where no one will certainly ever think of looking for us.”